Indecent Objection
by StoryQuipster
Summary: [Undomestic Goddess AU] Before anyone asks, there's a perfectly good reason why she's wearing a ridiculous maid outfit and crying in the living room with a glass of wine in her hand.
1. Chapter 1

**One**

* * *

Before anyone asks, there's a perfectly good reason why she's wearing a ridiculous maid outfit and crying in the living room with a glass of wine in her hand.

It all starts the day she's set to find out if she's made partner.

After spending the whole evening anxiously pacing around her apartment, she wakes up at 5 a.m. with her heart pounding.

Which is a miracle really because she's not a morning person and it normally takes her at least three hours to rouse herself from sleep. That's why she always sets all her alarms at four but this time around she didn't need even them, waking up a whole hour before she they can go off. It probably has something to do with the fact that today is the day when Jose Porla names the new partner for Fantomu Rōdo Law Firm. This is it. All the studying, the work, the late nights…it's all been for this day. Partner. Or not partner.

Oh, God, she needs to stop thinking about it. She won't know until late in the afternoon anyway so there's really no point in getting worked up about it.

Gajeel's told her as much the night before, when they were out in Tofuya Ukai for her birthday. Although now that she thinks about it, it wasn't much a birthday to begin with. She was supposed to spend the whole day off and just relax but the office called her because of a blip with one of their clients, Akira. She would've cancelled on the spa treatment Gajeel got her at Yamachu but she knew for a fact that it was expensive and she didn't want to offend him (considering how she's ditched the last few spa treatments he got her), so she spent the whole day trying to sneakily type out a new document on her blackberry while the masseuse gave her some sort of special massage for her nerves. Then, there was dinner which was kind of a disaster.

Gajeel and her were supposed to have a lovely dinner at Tofuya Ukai but the office called her again to say that a new thing came up so she ended up rushing through all five courses just so she can run back to the office. Gajeel nearly through a conniption. He spent the whole ride back ranting about how she takes her job way too seriously and that she's always stressed and under pressure and that they can't possibly make her work on her birthday.

But the thing is, she has a deadline and deadlines come first, end of story. Prior engagements don't count, and birthdays don't count. There's no room for vacation unless everything's sorted out. One of the associates' wife, Sol, had a kid once in the morning but he was back in the office by lunchtime.

And it's honestly no big deal. She's used to pressure. In fact, she _thrives_ in it. Has been doing so ever since she's entered law school. She loves her job. She loves spotting the loophole in a contract. Loves the thrill of negotiation and arguing her case and making the sharpest point in the whole room. She loves the adrenaline of closing a deal.

Law is her whole life. Which is why she's practically born for the position of partner.

If only Aria would see it that way. He's her least favorite among the senior partners. He's unnerving, his eyes hidden behind dark spectacles and his mouth always set in a droopy line. What's worse is that he lives in the same building as her so she always has to deal with awkward, small talk every time she catches him in the elevator. If only her neighbor was Jose Porla. He's kind of the maverick of the firm, the one who always breaks the rules. Once, he brought a dog to an important corporate meeting but everybody loved it and he ended up being a big hit. If anyone can lighten the atmosphere in a tricky meeting, it's Jose Porla. She's sure that among all the partners, he'll be the one rooting for her to get promoted. Just as she's equally sure that Aria will be opposing it. She's already overheard Aria saying that she's way too young to be made partner and that there's no rush. He'd probably have her slaving away as an associate for five more years if he had his way. But Porla will surely be on her side.

Oh god, she needs to stop. She'll find out anyway by the end of the day so there's no need to think about it until she has to.

With shaking knees, she gets up, totters to the kitchen and tries to navigate her way past the pile of empty take-out containers and milk bottles. If her mother could see her kitchen, she'd probably blow an artery. Her mother used to be a chef and when she wasn't busy cooking meals for customers in her restaurant, she and Juvia were in their sunny kitchen, whipping up new recipes and experimenting with old dishes. Before she can stop herself, her eyes suddenly feel hot and watery.

Great. She's walked into it. She stares at the floor, counting down the seconds, trying to fold up all the memories and package them away in some dark, unknown corner in her mind. She is not getting into this, of all days. She can't afford to, not with her possible promotion—

 _If you do get picked for partner, they would've been proud of you._

The phrase forces its way into her thoughts before she can stop it.

Her chest begins to fold over and she takes another deep breath to still it.

Well, it doesn't matter, she briskly decides once she's managed to regulate her breathing. What's done is done. There's no point in talking about what ifs and would haves. Her parents died in a car crash. It happened. There's nothing left to say.

With a shake of her head, she switches the kettle on and takes a sachet of instant coffee and nibbles a few Shreddies out of the packet while she waits for the water to boil.

The truth is she doesn't really care about the stuff that happened to her parents anymore. There's only one thing she cares about.

And it's making partner at the Fantomu Rōdo Law Firm.

* * *

She arrives at the office determined not to acknowledge the day as any kind of special day. She keeps her head down as she briskly walks through the cubicles to her own desk, trying to ignore everyone's cheers of "Good luck!" and thumbs ups. When she finally gets to her own office, she looks through some documents, trying to ignore the fact that through the partition glass, she can see people talking in the corridor and glancing in her direction.

Thirty minutes later, the door opens without a knock and immediately, she can tell it's Gajeel.

"Juvia?" he says, holding up two cups of coffee. Gajeel's her oldest, dearest friend and they've known each other since they were in diapers. When her parents died, his dad, Metallicana took her in so from being her unofficial big brother, he became her legitimate adopted brother. People have always asked if there was ever a thing between them and some have even joked that they'd probably get married in the future but it's just too weird. He's her best friend/honorary brother/platonic life partner and she can't really see him as anything but that. They've lived together since college but recently, he's moved out of their tiny apartment to live with his girlfriend.

"How are you doing?" he asks as she takes the cup from his hand.

"Fine," she calmly says as she looks through a document codifying a five-year-old share transfer. "I'm fine. Just normal. In fact, I don't even know what all the fuss is."

She flips over another page to prove her point, only to knock the entire file to the floor.

Gajeel starts laughing, the piercings on his nose and ears glinting against the sun. Juvia always found it a marvel that the firm hired him despite his…unconventional appearance. But then again, he did graduate at the top of their class. Second to her, of course.

"What?" she says, shooting him a dirty look. Red-faced and embarrassed, she shoves all the papers back inside the folder and tries to take a dignified sip from her cup, only to grimace when the coffee scalds her tongue.

"Uh-huh," he smirks. "Good thing you're not being nervy or jumpy or anything."

"Yes," Juvia says, refusing to take the bait. "Isn't it?"

He grins at her, showing rows of sharp, white teeth.

"Yep." He ruffles her hair affectionately. "See you later, then."

He lifts his coffee cup, as if toasting her before walking off. Juvia taps her fingers against the desk and looks at her watch. Only nine o'clock. The meeting would have started at eight. And if they didn't dwell on it too much, she would probably know the decision by nine-thirty.

Oh, god she can't stand this.

For the rest of the morning, she does nothing but pace around her office, alternating between looking out the windows and surreptitiously reading through the mountain of contracts she has to look over. She's just read the same sentence for the seventh time in the row when her door suddenly bangs open. She looks up in annoyance and snippily says, "I'm fine, okay? Would you please just stop—''

She's cut off by Gajeel rushing towards her, lifting her up in a bear hug and spinning her around the room.

"You did it! Holy fuck, Jujubee you did it! They've made you partner!" he yells.

He's looking at her with the strangest mixture of affection and excitement and pride. For an instant, she can't breathe, dizzy from all of Gajeel's spinning. Outside, she's vaguely aware of the fact that people are staring at them, giving her thumbs ups and smiling stupid grins.

"What? But how—''

"You didn't hear it from me, okay?" Gajeel says, his face quickly creasing into a serious expression. He finally puts her down, ruffles her hair and gives her a quick wink. "Well done."

"Thank you…" she manages, leaning back against her desk. He gives her one last grin and says something about champagne as he strides out of her office.

But Juvia can't hear him. She's too busy trying silence her thoughts which are growing louder by the second.

She's made it.

Oh god.

She did it.

She's partner.

She suddenly has the urge to jump on her desk, pump her fist into the air and cry out "Yes!" but instead, she forces herself to remain still and calm. She'll tidy up her desk. Yes, that's exactly what she'll do. It's been getting rather messy since she's started on that Mishima deal. There's a mountain of papers on one side, a few folders teetering over a pile of books and several half-empty packets of Snickers and potato chips scattered about her desk.

She grabs the waste basket and after hauling all of the junk food into the bin, she begins to systematically sort through her papers. Every once in a while the word PARTNER would race across her thoughts like a glittering firework but just as quickly, she would sternly instruct herself to concentrate. She's about halfway through with clearing out her desk when a paper-clipped document falls to the floor. She grabs it and runs her eyes through the front page. It's a memo from Jose Porla.

 _Re Fearī Teiru Trust and Banking Co.,_  
 _Please find attached debenture for Marubeni._  
 _Please attend to registration at Companies House._

With a practiced eye, she runs through the detail of the memo. Apparently, Fearī Teiru has agreed to loan around 50 million yen to Marubeni, a trading conglomerate and all she really has to do is to register the security document to the Companies House within twenty-one days. It should be easy enough and probably will only take her a day or two—

Her heart suddenly shudders.

The security document is dated November 3rd. That's five weeks ago. That can't be right.

Quickly, she flips through the papers, looking to see if there's a typo. There _must_ be a typo—but the date is consistent throughout.

Oh god.

November 3rd.

She blinks at the document.

It can't possibly have been sitting in her desk for five weeks.

A cold feeling starts creeping up her chest.

If…if she's missed the deadline than that means…that means she failed to register the charge. She's exposed Fearī Teiru to an unsecured loan. She can't have possibly made such a basic mistake. She never misses a deadline.

She closes her eyes and tries to remain calm. It's the excitement of being partner that's addled her brain. She's probably looked at the dates all wrong or misread the memo or—

It says November 3rd.

There is no mistake.

Somehow, she wasn't able to attend to the memo and exposed Fearī Teiru to an unsecured loan. Without the charge being registered, this loan, this multi-million yen loan will be unsecured. She's made the most elementary mistake a lawyer can make. She presses her palms against her eyes and tries to think and remember if Jose said something about the deal to her. She can't even remember him mentioning it but then again, why would he go out of his way to mention something as simple as a registry? He would've assumed that she took care of it with little to no problem.

She flips through page after page, trying to find some sort of loophole she can abuse but the document is air-tight. She has no choice. She just has to own up to the fact that she's made a mistake and go through the excruciating process of telling Jose Porla and all the other partners about what she's done. She has to make a new document and worst of all, live with everyone knowing that she's done the simplest, stupidest error a trainee wouldn't even make.

As she switches her computer on and logs on to the Companies House website a tinny voice starts telling her that she might lose her partnership. But no—she can't think about that right now. The important thing is that she owns up to the mistake and sets about to fixing it right away. Anyway, as long as no other chargers have been registered against Marubeni, then it will all come to the same thing—

No.

It can't be.

There's a new debenture in Marubeni's charge register, securing the 50 million yen to some company called Obayashi. It was registered just two weeks ago. Fearī Teiru has been bumped down to the creditor's queue.

Oh god.

She's fucked up.

Big time.

She's put their client 50 million yen at risk.

"Juvia?"

"What?" she says, nearly leaping out of her chair.

It's Sue, one of the trainees. "Gajeel just let it slip. They're going to announce the whole thing this lunchtime."

The iciness starts moving from her chest all the way to her spine. They're about to announce that she's made partner. But partners don't make stupid errors like she just did. Partners don't put their client's money at risk.

"Shall I break out the champagne?" Sue asks.

"Er…yes…" Juvia says after a long moment of silence. She feels paralyzed, as if every muscle in her body has stopped functioning. This isn't good. She has to talk to someone right away. She has to do something about this now before even more charges are made. She has to…she has to tell Jose Porla.

"Bet you haven't come out of your high yet," Sue says conversationally.

"Right, right," Juvia mumbles, sweat beading her forehead. "Um…Sue, could you just give me a sec? I…I need to handle something."

"Oh, of course!" Sue says. "Just let me know if you need anything."

As she walks off, Juvia grabs the phone and begins to dial the number of their contact at Fearī Teiru. Hātofiria Lucy. Bile rises up her throat. This is the girl whom she'll have to admit her mistake to.

"Hātofiria Lucy," a perky voice chirrups at the end of the line.

"Yes, hi, this Rokusa Juvia of Fantomu Rōdo."

"Hi Juvia!" she responds. "How can I help?"

She tries to keep her voice from shaking. "I'm…I'm phoning about a technical matter regarding…Marubeni—''

"Oh that! Wow. So you've heard? News travels really fast," Lucy says.

"What?" Juvia mumbles in a small voice.

The room seems to shrink.

"That's why you're calling right? The receivers called in today. That last ditch attempt to save themselves obviously didn't work—''

Lucy continues to prattle on but Juvia can't hear her. She feels light-headed. Black spots are dancing in front of her eyes. Her chest feels tight and her hands won't stop shaking. They'll never draw up a new document now. It's over. She's lost Fearī Teiru fifty million.

With unsteady fingers, she puts the phone down, too anxious to worry about the fact that she had just done an incredibly rude action. She's fucked up.

She's fucked up and there's nothing she can do to fix it. As if on autopilot, she pushes her chair back and starts walking out of the building.

* * *

She walks past reception, barely knowing what she's doing. The only thing she can focus on right now is getting one foot in front of the other, trying to blend in the crowd full of busy office workers.

Except, she's not just a regular office worker is she?

The others who are walking past her haven't lost a client 50 million yen.

Fifty million.

The amount is like a drumbeat in her head.

She doesn't understand how this can happen. She knows that she keeps a messy desk but she's never missed a deadline before. She has a system. How could she have not seen…how could she have overlooked….It must have been put on her desk, then covered up with a pile of other papers.

One mistake.

That's all it took to ruin her career.

She wants to wake up and find out that it's all been a bad dream, that it's just happened to someone else, that it's a story she's listening to at a bar, agog, grateful that it wasn't her who supremely fucked up.

Her chest feels unbearably tight and a wave of nausea hits her. She leans back against one of the railings to steady herself.

Suddenly, her phone vibrates in her pocket and she jumps in terror. She takes it out and looks at the caller ID. It's Gajeel.

She continues to blankly stare at it, not knowing if she should answer or not.

Finally, the phone clicks into voicemail. She lifts the phone to her ear and presses 1 to listen.

"Juvia!" Gajeel's cheery voice booms through the speakers. "They're about to announce it! Where are you? We're all waiting with champagne at the conference hall."

Partner.

She wants to ball herself up in the ground and burst into tears. But she can't because the mistake is too big for tears. She thrusts the phone into her feet and begins to walk again, faster this time, weaving past pedestrians. Her head is pounding and she has no idea where she is going or what she's planning to do.

She walks for what seems like hours, her head in a daze, her feet moving blindly. The sun is beating down and the pavements are dusty and eventually, she realizes how exhausted she feels. She looks up trying to catch her bearings.

Somehow she's reached the train station.

Numbly, she walks past the entrance and tries to keep herself from flinching every time an announcement blares through the speakers. The fluorescent lights and air-conditioning are making her dizzier. She's just about to make her way to one of the seats when her phone vibrates again. She tries to ignore it but it doesn't stop ringing.

She hesitates, her heart beating with nerves, and then, she taps on the green phone icon to listen.

"For fuck's sake Juvia, what happened?"

He doesn't sound happy anymore. In fact, he sounds hassled and stressed.

"We know okay?" he says. "Hātofiria-san called again because apparently you just suddenly hung up. Fearī Teiru and the whole business with Marubeni...we know. You have to come back to the office. _Now_."

Prickles of dread start moving across her body.

"Juvia? Juvia?"

"Juvia…" she thickly swallows. Great. Her habit of speaking in third person is back. The last time this happened was when she had to take the bar exam.

"Hello? Hello? Jujubee? You there—''

She presses end.

She can't do it. She can't face everyone yet. She's too paralyzed with fright.

 _Everyone knows._

She needs to regroup. Yes, that's what she'll do. She'll go to the bathroom, splash some water on her face and then—

Shit. It's Totomaru, one of the associates and also the contact for Fearī Teiru. He's been in Hong Kong, if she can remember. Now he's striding along the concourse, wearing an expensive suit, a phone in his hand. His brows are knitted together and he looks angry.

"So where the fuck is she?" he snaps.

Shit. They're looking for her. She feels like some sort of criminal.

She needs to get out of his line of vision _now_. She scrambles out of her seat and hurries over to an area where there seems to be a big crowd of people. She's still trying to see where Totomaru is heading when someone says, "Miss? Miss?"

Juvia blinks at him.

"Would you like to buy a ticket?" he asks, annoyed.

And before she can stop herself, she says, "Yes."

* * *

She's only aware of her surroundings when someone taps her on the shoulder and asks if she'd like anything from the trolley full of snacks and drinks.

She jolts in her seat and tries to figure out where she is.

She's in a train…heading…well actually she doesn't know where it's heading. Vaguely, she remembers walking out of the office, obsessively turning over the mistake she's made again and again. She remembers muting her phone after Gajeel started calling her, saying that they've figured it out, that they've found the document in her desk. She remembers walking all the way to the train station and just wanting to get away from everything.

"Miss?" the train attendant says.

Juvia looks at him, as if in a daze and slowly shakes her head. He moves away, looking back to give her an odd look.

Her career is over.

The last person to commit such a mistake was Jin Hayami who lost a client a five million and she's lost ten times the amount. He was fired on the spot.

The familiar tightness gripping her chest comes back and she suddenly feels as if she has been smothered. Her mouth feels dry. Black spots are dancing in front of her eyes again. Nausea is rising up inside her. With shaking hands, she opens her phone for the first time since she's muted it.

Thirty messages.

She thickly swallows and opens one of Gajeel's messages.

 _Juvia where are you? We know, okay? Please come back so we can get this sorted out. The partners want_ —

Partner.

The tears which have refused expression this whole time suddenly pour down her cheeks in torrents. Forget about being a partner, she doesn't even have a chance at being a lawyer anymore. They'll surely fire her. Her career is ruined.

As she watches the landscape turn from tall buildings into suburbs and eventually, wide open spaces and fields, the iciness in her stomach grows colder and her entire body shakes. She calls the trolleyman for three small bottles of gin and some orange juice but when she tries to open a bottle, her fingers tremble so badly that she ends up spilling everything all over her black skirt. The trolleyman looks at her sympathetically and hands her a tissue and like a zombie, she dazedly wipes the mess off her skirt.

She feels weirdly disconnected from everything around her. She's made the biggest mistake of her career. She'll lose her job. She will never be a partner. One stupid mistake. That's all it took. But that's life, isn't it? It's usually just one thing. It only took one stupid car crash to take her parents away and turn her life in a jumbled mess.

Eventually more people enter the train and a nice old lady sits across her, opens a packet of chips and offers some to her.

"Traveling for business or fun?"

"Business," she says, more out of impulse than anything. Immediately, she regrets it, the dull throbbing in her chest intensifying. No, she'll probably never be able to travel for business ever again. _Her career is ruined._ The phrase repeats itself over and over in her head like a mantra.

Her heartrate increases and a bad, pounding headache starts to hammer from the back of her head. She puts a hand over her face, trying to block out the sunlight.

The lady continues to prattle on but it's just muted noise to Juvia. She knows she can't run forever but the idea of picking up the phone and calling Gajeel or anyone else is too unbearable for her. She can't do it. She can't face anyone yet.

Eventually someone taps her on the shoulder.

It's the old lady.

Juvia blinks at her.

"Dear, this is the last stop," she kindly says.

"What?" Juvia mumbles. Her voice sounds dry and creaky, as if it's been through centuries' worth of disuse.

"We're in Aomori," the woman helpfully says, gesturing at all the people gathering their bags and walking out to the train platform. Like an automaton, Juvia gets up and follows the rest of them out to a tiny, cramped country station. There's a small office across the road and from beyond it, she can catch glimpses of the sea.

"Dear, you need to come this way if you want to go all the way to the city proper. Or are you planning to go to one of the villages like Hiranai or Gonohe?" the old woman says, looking at Juvia with increasing concern.

"One of…one of the villages," she forces out.

"Which one?"

"Juvia….Juvia is not sure," she mumbles. The old lady guides her to one of the bus stations and Juvia gets on one at random, despite the old lady's protests. She gives a brief thank you and a bow before paying the fare and staggering off into one of the seats.

Her phone suddenly vibrates. It's Gajeel. Again. This must be the fiftieth time he's rung. And each message he's sent her has become increasingly panicked.

 _Where are you?_

 _Juvia pick up the phone!_

 _Please, just tell me where you are!_

A swoop of guilt overtakes her. He must've been worried out of his mind, wondering if she's done something terrible to herself.

After a few deep breaths, she presses the tiny icon symbolizing talk and presses the phone to her ear.

"Juvia!" Gajeel says, not giving her a chance to speak. He sounds relieved. "Where are you?"

"Juvia…Juvia doesn't know. She had to get away. She…she went into a shock and she thinks…she means…she doesn't know…" Her voice breaks into a sob. "She think she's had a panic attack."

"Juvia," Gajeel's voice is kinder. "Where are you? I'll pick you up. We'll sort this out and—''

"No. No she can't face them yet—''

"You have to, Jujubee. Porla has been having damage limitation talks with Marubeni's lawyers and talking to Fearī Teiru and the insurers and—''

The insurers. For a brief moment, she's gripped by an exhilarating hope. If the insurers pay without making a fuss, maybe things won't be as bad as she thought.

"…and those damned insurers are causing a lot of trouble but we're pretty sure—''

Of course. Insurers never cough up the whole amount. Sometimes they don't cough up anything. Sometimes they pay up but only after raising their premiums to unfeasible levels.

"Where are you, Juvia? I'll pick you up right now!" Gajeel says.

"She…she doesn't know," she mumbles, looking out of the window. Outside, the sky is steadily growing darker. The bus is moving along a road that winds around the side of a cliff, with the sea lying in unbroken clam, speckled by a million fragments of the dying light at the opposite side. In the distance, there is a harbor, enclosed by a stone breakwater to the right and a little headland where tiny, white-washed huts stood under cherry blossom trees. There are one or two boats anchored by the harbor, painted baby blue with masts poking out of the misty twilight sky. There's something about the scene that seems vaguely familiar.

"What do you mean you don't—''

Her phone shuts down. It's dead. And she's left her charger at the office.

The bus suddenly stops and it takes about three shakes from the driver before she can muster up enough focus to walk out. With trembling legs, she begins to totter down the road, unaware of anything except the trees and the sound of the ocean waves breaking against the rocks.

She doesn't stop until she reaches a pair of tall carved marble pillars. It's a house.

As if suddenly aware of how exhausted she is, she rings the doorbell, hoping to use the phone and perhaps, ask if there's a hotel nearby.

When no one answers, she pushes the elaborate gate open and crunches over the gravel towards the heavy oak front door. It's a rather grand house made of honey-colored stone, set well back from the road and shaded with cherry blossoms trees. She raises a hand and tugs the bellpull.

Silence.

The whole house seems dead.

She's just about to give up and return to the road when a door swings open. A tall woman with an authoritative face and striking red hair peers at her and leans against the doorframe, raising a brow.

"Hello. Are you from the agency?"

* * *

Juvia has no idea what this woman is talking about.

But her head is hurting and her legs ache and she can barely look at her, let alone take in what she's saying.

"Are you all right?" she says. "You look terrible!"

"Juvia has a really bad headache," she mumbles, not caring anymore that she's speaking in third person. Then, suddenly remembering her manners, she makes a short bow. "Juvia is terribly sorry for intruding but could she possibly have a glass of water?"

"Of course! Of course, come in!" the woman says. She takes a step back and beckons Juvia into a huge, impressive hall with a vaulted ceiling. There's a circular marble table in the middle, bearing a vase full of huge, intense flowers.

"You'll want to see the house, anyway, I believe. I'm Sukaretto Erza by the way," she says as she strides down the halls. "You may simply call me Erza-san. I do despise formalities. Although I must say, I'm quite impressed with your outfit. The care in which you've put to dressing up for this interview is just amazing."

"Rokusa Juvia," Juvia distractedly replies, not sure what the woman is talking about.

Erza leads her down a short passage to a luxurious kitchen where she begins to root through the cabinets and drawers until she finally finds a small plastic box full of tablets. She hands an aspirin to Juvia before pouring her a glass of water.

"You have to excuse me. I'm afraid I'm the only one who can conduct the interview. As was mentioned in the brief your agency must have given you, Gray—Furubasuta-sama—has been…er…undergoing a very difficult time and he's been very uncooperative since he's gotten here. That's why his siblings sent him here to Oma," Erza conversationally says as Juvia downs the medicine.

She chokes on her water. Oma….Oma is all the way at the tip of Japan. She can't…she can't have possibly gone all the way here from Tokyo. And of all the places she had to get lost in, she ends up in her hometown.

Memories of her parents suddenly wash over her, bringing with them a new wave of nausea.

"All better?" Erza asks.

"Yes," she replies, thickly swallowing. "Juvia is so grateful. She's just had the most terrible headache. It's so bad she can barely think straight."

"Oh, dear. Does that mean we have to move the interview?" Erza asks.

"Interview?" Juvia says. "Juvia doesn't—''

"Of course, it's better to get it over with as quickly as possible," Erza says as she sweeps Juvia out of the kitchen and into the hall.

"This is the drawing room by the way," she says before Juvia can respond. She gestures around the large, grand room that is decorated with paintings, lamps, ornaments and several lush, velvet sofas. "As you'll see, there's quite a lot of vacuuming…dusting…polishing. You'll do it all alone but the salary we're offering is more than enough to compensate, I expect."

She stares at Juvia, as if waiting for a reply.

"Right," Juvia responds uncertainly, unsure of why Erza has just begun telling her about the housework and why she's looking at Juvia as if she is expecting her to say something else.

"That's…that's a beautiful painting," Juvia offers at last.

"Yes. It's an ukiyo-e. A genuine Hokusai. So be very careful when dusting it," Erza says.

"Of course," Juvia says, nodding more out of confusion than anything else.

"Can you make a good Bloody Mary?" Erza asks as she leads Juvia into the next room.

"Er…no?"

"Oh well, no matter! I'll just have to teach you," she says. They continue on through the whole house with Erza blabbering on and on about housework. As they trail the first floor, she keeps pointing out things that need special dusting and polishing, and how careful one has to be with the soft furnishings and the silk drapes. They eventually go upstairs where a large painting of three people peers at her. There's a woman with pale skin and dark hair in the middle, flanked by two serious-looking men at both sides, one with silver hair and the other with black.

"Where did you last work?" Erza asks.

"Tokyo," Juvia replies. She's about to add Fantomu Rōdo but she can't even bear to say the words.

"Did you work full-time there?"

"I did," Juvia says.

"What sort of hours did you work?" Erza says, looking at her with sudden interest.

"All hours," she shrugs. "Juvia is used to working all day and sometimes into the night."

Erza looks absolutely stunned. People really have no idea what the life of a lawyer is like.

"You used to work through the night?" she says, stupefied. "On your own?"

"Me and the other staff. Whoever was needed."

"You come from a big set-up, then?" Erza asks, looking impressed.

"One of the biggest in the whole of Tokyo," Juvia says.

"Well, you'll find that we're far more relaxed here! Of course, Gray is difficult to deal with sometimes but it's understandable given what just happened to him. And it's only me and him and well, you of course, so you won't have to launder and cook for so many people. My fiancé, Jellal comes but only every weekends. Sometimes, Lyon and Ultear visit but that's very rare," Erza babbles. She gestures at a shut door. "This is the master bedroom. He went to sleep early so we shouldn't disturb him."

Then, she opens another door to a room filled with swishy curtains, a large bed and matching-colored upholstered ottomans. "This is my room. If you need anything, don't hesitate to knock!"

Juvia looks at her blankly, utterly confused.

"And oh, here we are! Staff accommodation," Erza says, opening the door to a plainer room. The walls are pale and the curtains less ornate but the bed looks just as lush and soft as the one in Erza's room. As Erza talks about the crisp, white bed linens, Juvia fights the overwhelming urge to lie down on it and sink into oblivion.

"So…that's the whole house. Shall we postpone the interview or move on with it? You do seem a little better now," Erza says, eyes narrowing to inspect Juvia's face closely. "And you've dressed up for it so smartly too that it would be a shame for us to postpone."

"Interview?" Juvia says.

Erza raises her brows. "Interview for the housekeeping position we've set up. That's what you're here for, right?"

"Juvia doesn't—''

"Your role will comprise of all cleaning, laundry and cooking. You will wear a uniform and maintain a courteous and respectful—''

Juvia stares at Erza, poleaxed. She can't…she can't possibly believe that Juvia is applying to be their housekeeper. She opens her mouth to say something but she is too dumbfounded to speak.

"…full board and lodging," Erza continues. "And you get four weeks holiday a year and all weekends off of course, unless we have a party or something but then you will be fully compensated by getting another day of the regular week off."

Juvia looks at the room, trying to catch her bearings. They think she's a housekeeper. A housekeeper! She needs to set things right this instant. She needs to tell them that she's a lawyer and that she simply got lost and just needs directions to the nearest hotel. But another wave of wooziness hits her before she can clear the misunderstanding up and she has to sit on the bed to steady herself. The softness of the mattress hits her and she's suddenly gripped with the unbearable desire to lie back and take a long, deep sleep.

"Um…could Juvia possibly stay here for the night?" she stupidly asks.

Erza looks surprised. "Start now, you mean? Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves, Juvia. We've had a few promising applicants for this post. One girl even had a diploma in French Cordon Bleu cookery!"

Something inside Juvia stiffens, like an automatic reflex. Is she suggesting—Is she implying that Juvia might _not_ get the job? She regards Erza silently, feeling a tiny flicker of the old Juvia returning. She can beat some French Cordon Bleu Cookery girl. She's passed every interview in her life. She's not about to start failing.

"Juvia has also gone to French Cordon Bleu. In fact, she trained under Michel…" She struggles to think of a French name. Or a French word. "…de la Escargot."

Erza narrows her eyes. "Michel…de la Escargot? ''

Juvia authoritatively nods her head. "His name speaks for himself, I believe."

Erza looks embarrassed at not knowing who he is.

"Absolutely!" she says in a too-loud voice.

Ten minutes later, the two of them are sitting in the drawing room where Erza is firing a series of questions that sound like they come from a WikiHow article on how to hire a housekeeper. And Juvia's answering every single one with total confidence. At the back of her mind, she can hear a voice that sounds suspiciously like Gajeel telling her to stop but she's not listening. Somehow, she's managed to block out her real life, the mistake, her ruined career, the whole nightmare of a day. She's fucked everything up but she can still ace this interview. She can still prove to herself that she's not a total fuck-up.

"Could you give me a sample menu?"

Despite the little pain that shoots across her chest, her mother's dishes come rushing back to her and Juvia rattles them off confidently, "Kushikatsu as the main along with some Soki, and perhaps some Ikura as the sides and Dangojiru for the soup."

Erza nods, looking impressed.

"What about some French dishes?"

"French dishes?"

"You did school at Cordon Bleu right?"

"Er…right." Again, Juvia attempts to come up with a French sounding name. It didn't matter what as Erza herself doesn't look like she knows too much about the language or even the culture. If she can just find a French word or a phrase or a…

"Er..an Eiffel. Juvia will cook an Eiffel as the main—''

"But isn't that the tower?" Erza interrupts.

"It's also a delicious meat dish," Juvia says confidently. "And some er….escargot soup and baguettes and for desert….gelato."

"But…but that's Italian," Erza says.

Juvia raises a brow. "But surely you know gelato originated in France?"

Erza's face reddens and she embarrassedly shakes her head. "No…I didn't know that, I'm sorry."

She then smoothens her skirt and grins at her. "Well…to be frank Juvia…I'm very impressed with your credentials. But I just need one more thing. I'm sure you have a reference, right Juvia?"

"Reference?"

Erza frowns slightly. "We will need a reference."

"Reddofokksu Gajeel," she promptly says, in sudden inspiration. "Heis a lawyer. I've been associated with him for years. He will vouch for me. Juvia often cooked her specialty, eggs benedict, for him."

Erza is pulling what she must assume to be a cryptic face but she might as well have "You're hired!" tattooed on her forehead.

"Oh, but one more thing. You will be answering the phone while me and Gray will be out. Gray is a very important man and his image in society is very important. If you can just please demonstrate how you will do it?" Erza says.

Juvia looks at her, stupefied. She can't be serious can she? Except, she totally is.

"You should say, 'Good afternoon, the Furubasuta residence'," Erza prompts.

With a barely restrained sigh, Juvia gets up, walk across the room and lifts up the phone.

"Good afternoon," she says in her most charming, student president tones. "The Furubasuta Residence, how may I help you?"

Erza nods her head, smiling as if she's just won a million dollars.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** So, I'm back again, ready to finish those 30 fic requests! Another maid AU was requested and since I've gotten lots of message expressing approval and a desire for more Sophie Kinsella-flavored gruvia fics, I decided to make one inspired by _Undomestic Goddess_. If this seems familiar, it's because it's supposed to be! This came from the 30 Fics Celebratory thing I was doing in tumblr and the prompt was a maid au. I was supposed to make this include this in my collection of other oneshots but it got too long. Depending on how I decide to cut it (because right now, it's just one, absurdly, long oneshot), it might be three to seven chapters long. Will update weekly.


	2. Chapter 2

**Two**

* * *

The next morning, Juvia wakes up to an unfamiliar white ceiling.

She frowns in confusion and attempts to sit up, the sheets making a strange rumpling sound as she moves. She pauses. Her sheets don't sound anything like that. And she's pretty sure that the walls of her room are painted pale green instead of white.

Well, of course. This isn't her room. It's Erza's.

But who is Erza?

She bites her bottom lip and tries to fight through the dense fog in her mind. She went on a train to…somewhere…and then, she had a headache. But before that, there was something else. She's sure that before she walked on the train, she was in the office—

Oh god.

Oh please, no.

With a sickening whoosh, the entire nightmare comes rushing back. The memo. Fearī Teiru. Fifty million yen. Her wrecked career.

And to think, this time yesterday, she was in her kitchen, getting ready for work, blissfully unaware of what was about to happen. In another world—in a universe parallel to this one—she would have woken up today as a partner of Fantomu Rōdo, surrounded by messages of congratulations. If only she'd seen the memo earlier. If only she'd kept a tidier desk. If only Jose Porla had said something about it to her before.

But there's no point. It already happened. There's no sense in her going through the what-ifs and would-haves. All she can do is deal with it. And fix it somehow.

She gets out of bed and staggers towards the mirror, trying to regain some semblance of control. Since her parents died, she made sure that her whole life would be mapped out to the hour. Through exams, through internships, the rungs of the career ladder…she thought she knew exactly where she was headed. And now, she's in some strange room in the middle of nowhere with her career in ruins.

Okay, maybe she's exaggerating. She tends to do that a lot. Maybe things are salvageable. Maybe it's not all as bad as she thought. When Gajeel called, she never really got the chance to ask him properly if she's lost her job. And there is still a chance that she can get the insurers to cough up the amount. It will be difficult but she has handled tougher negotiations before and she has always come out on top.

She takes a deep breath and runs her hands through her tangled hair. God, she really flipped out yesterday. It was even worse than that time after her parents died. When she considered the way she acted; running out of the office, jumping on a train…she really was on another planet. It's a good thing Erza was so understanding—

Erza.

There's something about Erza that she's completely forgotten.

Something she's not remembering…something that's ringing alarm bells…

She swivels around and focuses on a hideous black and white dress with a matching apron and bonnet hanging on the wardrobe door. It looks like…it looks like a maid's uniform. But why on earth would there be a maid's uniform in her room?

The alarm bells start clanging louder. Like a horrible, drunken dream, everything comes rushing back to her—the interview, French Cordon Bleu cookery diplomas, escargots…

Oh god.

 _Did she just take a job as a housekeeper?_

For a few moments, she stands there, petrified. What has she done? _What the fuck has she done?_

Her heart starts to thump wildly against her chest as she takes in her situation properly for the first time. She's staying in someone else's house under completely false pretenses. So not only has she lost her firm fifty million yen, she has also lied about being a French Cordon Bleu-trained housekeeper. Oh god. She knew she experienced some sort of breakdown yesterday but she honestly didn't think that it was _that_ bad.

She'll have to tell them that it had all been lies.

"Juvia?"

Erza's voice comes through the door, startling her. "May I come in?"

"Oh! Um…yes?"

The door opens and Erza appears, wearing yoga pants and a purple tank top, a tray with a cup of coffee and a sandwich in her hands.

"Good morning!" she cheerfully says. "I've made you breakfast! Me and Gray would really like you to feel welcome in the house. And since you weren't feeling well last night…"

"Oh…wow," Juvia says. She gives a short bow. "Thank you very much!"

She takes the tray of food from Erza's hands before setting it down on the coffee table next to her bed.

"Well!" Erza says, clapping her hands together. "You'd better get dressed. I'll be expecting you down in twenty minutes. Me and Gray usually have a rather heavy breakfast but I take mine a bit later because I do yoga in the mornings. You don't have to prepare any today, of course, because I've already made everything but we can discuss this week's menu."

"Yes. Okay," Juvia feebly says.

Erza gives her one last grin before walking out of the room and closing the door from behind her.

Oh fuck. What the hell is she supposed to do now?

Okay, what she needs to do is to stop being so panicky and _prioritize_. First, she needs to call the office. Find out exactly how bad the situation is. Then, she needs to tell Gajeel that she's okay and that he shouldn't worry too much about her.

With a spasm of apprehension, she roots through her pocket for her phone.

The display screen is blank.

Right. Her battery died yesterday and she left the charger in the office.

How is she supposed to call the office? How is she going to do _anything_?

Suddenly, she remembers passing a phone by the landing. It was on a table in a little window bay. She can use that. She's just about to leave when she catches sight of the black and white maid's uniform. She shouldn't even think about wearing it but…she's slept in nothing but her clothes from the night before and she does feel rather sticky and gross. And if she's going to call the office, she's going to need to be fresh and alert for the entire conversation. She will look ridiculous but she can always take the outfit off once she's explained everything to Erza.

With a sigh, she scrambles into the bathroom adjacent to her room and after a quick wash, she slips into the black dress, frowning when she realizes that the apron seems to be sewn together with the outfit instead of being a separate piece and puts on the silly white bonnet before peeking out of the corridor. No one's about. Cautiously, she creeps into the bay and lifts the receiver, punching the direct line for Jose Porla's office. It isn't eight yet but he'll be in. He's always in early.

"Jose Porla's office," a pleasant voice who she recognizes as Sara comes through the line.

"Sara! Hi! This is Juvia," she says.

"Juvia?" Sara sounds so poleaxed that Juvia winces. "Oh my god! What happened? Where are you? Everybody's been looking for you!"

"Juvia…Juvia's out of town right now," she says, cringing when she realizes that she's spoken in third person. "May I speak with Jose-san?"

"Of course! Of course! Just hang on a minute." She disappears into chirpy Vivaldi before the line clears again.

"Juvia!" Jose's genial voice booms through the other end of the line. "My dear girl. You've certainly gotten yourself in a pickle have you?"

Only Jose Porla would describe her losing their client's 50 million yen as a "pickle." In spite of everything, she can feel the beginnings of a smile. She can just picture him, in his wooly trench coat, his brows knitting together.

"Juvia knows."

"I have to point out that your hasty departure yesterday certainly did not help matters."

She cringes.

"Juvia is _so_ sorry. She just…she just panicked…"

"Understandable. However, you left…quite a mess behind."

Juvia scrubs a hand through her face. Beneath his jolly veneer, she can detect the slightest amount of anxiety in Jose's voice. Jose never gets stressed. Things must be really bad.

"So…so what's the situation?" Juvia asks after a moment of silence. All she really wants to do right now is fall into a groveling heap, crying out "I'm sorry!" but she knows that won't help. She's been unprofessional enough.

"The receivers can't do anything. Their hands are tied," Jose says. "We're trying to get the money from the insurers but there have been several complications."

His response is like a hammer blow to the head. It's the final death knell to her entire situation. That's it. The fifty million is gone for good. There's no good news. There's no silver lining. She fucked up. That's all there is to it.

"Is Juvia—I mean am I…am I fired?" she whispers.

"There have been more slightly pressing matters to consider other than your employment, Juvia." He sounds testy.

"Of course! Of course but…Juvia just needs to know….It's just that…she's worked in the firm her whole life and—''

Jose Porla sighs. Her grip on the receiver tightens.

"Juvia, you're a very talented lawyer. Nobody can deny that," Jose says.

"But Juvia made a mistake. She didn't see the memo. She lost our client 50 million." Her voice is trembling and she's terrified that any minute now, she's going to burst into tears. Jose doesn't say anything else.

She can hear tiny cackles down the line; her own pulse beating in her ears.

"Juvia can go there if you need her to! She can get on the next train and be there by the end of the day!" she says, in a desperate attempt to fill the silence.

"I don't think that's a good idea." There's a new edge to Jose's voice which pulls her up short.

"So Juvia _has_ been fired…" she miserably says.

"No. Not yet. But Juvia…I might as well tell you right now," Jose says. "A meeting has been arranged at four o'clock to discuss your future. I'll do everything I can to argue your case."

A tiny of glimmer of hope swells in her chest.

"And you honestly don't think Juvia should go back? To you know, defend herself?" she asks.

"It might do more harm than good at the moment. Stay where you are. Leave the rest to me." Jose Porla hesitates, his voice a little gruff. "I'll do my best, Juvia. I promise."

"Thank you so much…" she says. But he's gone.

Slowly, she puts the phone down. She has never felt so powerless in her life. By four o'clock, all of them will be sitting gravely around a conference table. Aria. Jose Porla. Maybe even Totomaru. Deciding whether to give her another break. There's still a chance. Jose is a fantastic lawyer. Aria will probably argue against her but if he's up against Jose…

" _Super_ girl! French Cordon Bleu cookery!"

She jumps at the sound of Erza's approaching voice. "And she can cook an Eiffel! No, not the tower, Jellal, _obviously_ , but the meat dish…"

Erza rounds the corner, holding a mobile phone to her ear and Juvia quickly moves away from the telephone.

"Juvia! There you are!" Erza says. "Oh good! You've changed. I was just coming to get you. You can go ahead downstairs. I just need to prepare for work."

She ambles off to her own room, leaving Juvia in silence.

Suddenly, she feels bad.

How is Erza going to react when she finds out that Juvia's a total fraud? That she's not a trained Cordon Bleu housekeeper after all but just a girl who's had a nervous breakdown and needed a place to stay for the night?

She suddenly has a vision of Erza bundling her out of the house, chasing her away with a broom, feeling totally used. Maybe she'll even call the police and file charges. Oh god. This could get really nasty.

But it's not as if she really has any other option unless—

No.

She can't.

That would be making things worse.

But Erza has been so kind to her. And it's not as if Juvia is doing anything else right now or has anywhere else to go. She can always go back to the city but then again, she won't have much to do but hole herself up in her apartment until she receives word from the office. Staying here is probably better. It will take her mind off things and—

Abruptly, she's come to a decision.

She'll busk it for a day. It can't be that hard. She'll make them some food and dust the ornaments or whatever. It'll be like a little thank you to them. Then, as soon as she hears from Jose, she'll find a convincing excuse to leave. And Erza will never know she wasn't a proper housekeeper.

Hurriedly, she scrambles back to her room and fixes up her hair. Then, she stands to face herself in the mirror.

"Good morning Erza-san," she says to her reflection. "How would you…er…like the drawing room to be dusted?"

* * *

When she gets to the drawing room, Erza is already there, waiting for her. She's changed out of her yoga outfit into a smart Jigsaw pantsuit, her vibrant red hair clipped back into a tight ponytail. For a moment, Juvia feels a spasm of jealousy. That could have been her this morning, getting ready for work—she could've looked as sleek and professional as Erza. Instead, she's wearing a frilly white bonnet and an apron.

"Good morning Erza-san!" Juvia says, walking over to a bench seat and straightening out a cushion, trying to look as though she knows what she's doing.

"Good morning Juvia! You'll be wanting to see your new kitchen, I suppose!" Erza brightly says.

"Of course!" Juvia gives her a confident smile. "Juvia has been….looking forward to it the whole morning!"

It's only a kitchen. She's been in loads of kitchens before. It's no big deal.

Erza leads her into the vast maple kitchen and this time, Juvia tries to take in the details. There's a huge stove set into the granite counter at the center. A bank of ovens are built into the wall. Everywhere she looks, she can see chrome gadgets plugged into sockets and racks of shiny, silver saucepans.

"You'll want to get it into the way you like it, of course!" Erza says, grandly gesturing at everything. "Just change anything you like! Knock it into shape. You're the professional!"

She stares at Juvia expectantly.

Juvia blinks back at her.

Is there supposed to be some scientific way of arranging kitchen implements? Do they teach some sort of arranging mechanism in Cordon Bleu?

"Er right! Absolutely!" Juvia gives a businesslike nod. "Obviously…Juvia has her own systems. That…juice extractor…shouldn't be there for example."

"Really?" Erza looks fascinated. "Why's that?"

There's a beat of silence.

"Kitchen…ergonomic…theory," she improvises, trying to feign nonchalance.

Erza blinks back at Juvia in confusion and to distract her, she briskly heads over to one of the stoves and says, "So…what will you be having for lunch?"

"We haven't really bought any ingredients for the week yet. I'll have to take you around town to go shopping for them this afternoon. I'll just buy lunch for the three of us on my way back from my meeting," Erza says.

Juvia inwardly sighs in relief. She's in the clear for now.

"But we have plenty of flour and sugar and other baking implements! Surely, you can whip me and Gray up some strawberry cake for dessert," she eagerly says.

Juvia blinks at her. "W-What?"

"Strawberry cake. They taught pastries as well in Cordon Bleu right?"

"Er…right."

"Great! Then, that should be no problem. For dinner I was thinking that you make us something European. So it would be best if you have all the ingredients we need in a list by the time we go out shopping," Erza continues, staring expectantly at her.

Juvia thickly swallows, trying to remember what sort of European dish she's been peddling to Erza the night before. "Right! Of course! Juvia will…make…well actually, she'd rather it be a surprise."

"Of course! I understand completely!" Erza says. She then runs her fingers through her hair and whips a phone out of her bag, busily tapping a couple of new messages away. "Again, I'll eat lunch here but I'll be gone for the whole morning for a business meeting. Do you think you would be able to have the cake ready by one-thirty?"

"Yes," Juvia says.

"All right. That will be all for now."

"Er…very good, Erza-san," she says, playing her part. Then, without meaning to, she bobs a curtsy.

There's a staggered pause. Erza gapes at her in astonishment.

"Juvia…did you just… _curtsy_?" Erza says at last.

She stares back, frozen.

What the hell was she thinking? Why did she curtsy? Housekeepers don't curtsy. This isn't _Downton Abbey._

Erza is still goggling at her. She needs to say something.

"Gajeel…sama…liked me to cursty," she haltingly says, prickling with shame. "It's a habit she got into. Sorry Erza-san. She won't do it again."

Erza's eyes are narrowing against hers, as if trying to make her out. She must realize that Juvia is a fake, she _must_ have realized and now, she'll call the cops and…

"I like it," Erza pronounces. She nods her head in satisfaction. "Yes, I like it. You can curtsy here too."

 _What?_

This is the twenty-first century. And she's being asked to curtsy to a woman named Erza.

She feels as if she's stumbled into some bizarre Merchant Ivory costume drama except that instead of elaborate gowns and petticoats, the costumes are yoga outfits and Jigsaw pantsuits.

Juvia takes a breath to protest but then she stops herself. It doesn't matter. It's not real. She can curtsy for a day.

* * *

By ten, her nerves are beginning to fray.

The entire morning has been a complete disaster. At first, she attempted to clean up the drawing room but all she's managed to do is rip a hole into the fancy carpets with the vacuum and break the super important Ming vase. She already ordered replacements off the internet and she's just hoping that Erza won't notice until her orders arrive. After nearly wrecking the genuine Hokusai ukiyo-e, she decides that maybe she should stop trying to clean the drawing room and just get on with tidying up the kitchen.

Honestly, she doesn't know why she's so bad at everything. It's not as if she hasn't cleaned a house before. Well—okay, fine. Technically, she hasn't cleaned a house in _years_. Not since she moved out of Oma. She's always had cleaners to do everything for her and Gajeel so she can't be faulted for being a little… _rusty_ with this whole housekeeping business.

But she can do it. She's mucked everything up in her life but she can do something as simple as housecleaning. It's probably just like riding a bike. She just needs to exercise so that the cogs can get back into shape again or something.

With a deep breath, she strides into the kitchen and looks at the pile of dirty dishes Erza's left at the sink before training her eyes on the dishwashing machine. This should be simple enough. After heaving all the plates and cups into the dishwasher, she experimentally presses the ON button and at once the electronic display starts flashing at her. _WASH? WASH?_

Immediately, she feels like yelling, "Of course I want you to wash! You're a freaking dish _washer_!"

Okay.

She needs to stay calm.

One thing at a time.

The first step is to obviously pour the soap into the little tray at the top. Feeling proud of herself, she fumbles for the dishwashing liquid and carefully pours it on the tray, pausing for a moment when she realizes that she has no idea how much she should pour. After a few minutes of anxious staring, she finally decides to just overfill the tray. Obviously, it's better for the dishes to be extra clean and soaped up than…under cleaned.

After filling up the tray, she shuts the machine door and surveys the buttons.

Now what?

 _WASH?_ The machine is still flashing at her. _WASH?_

"Yes Juvia wants you to wash!" she snaps, randomly jabbing a button.

 _ENTER PROGRAM?_ It flashes.

What program? Why does it need all these programs to wash the goddamn dishes?

Oh for god's sake, she'll just push whatever button. It probably doesn't matter.

A whirring sound suddenly comes on and the electronic screen starts blinking _K3. K3_? She nervously gulps. She doesn't like the sound of that. It sounds sinister. Like a cliff face or a secret government plot.

 _YOU HAVE CHOSEN K3. HEAVY DUTY CLEANING._

"Shit! No! That's not what Juvia wants," she says as she attempts to switch the machine off. For some reason, the machine door opens sending a torrent of bubbles and froth across the kitchen floor. In her desperation to clean the suds up, she slips and nearly crashes headlong into the rack full of kitchen towels.

Okay.

Maybe she shouldn't do the dishes. She should just do the cake. Yes. Cooking is something she can do. She's been cooking for most of her childhood. She can whip up a strawberry cake. She can do this.

Except that she totally can't.

Two hours later and she's still baking.

At least that's what she hopes she's doing. The oven is roaring with heat and the stove is full of pots simmering with glazes. The electric whisk is whirring busily. She's burned both of her hands trying to take things out of the oven and she's taken out seven different recipe books, all of which have been drenched in oil, flour or cream. Her face is unbearably hot and red and she's sweating hard, her hands trembling from exhaustion.

This is her third attempt and so far, she hasn't produced anything that looks remotely like a cake. All her attempts have ended with either an overly wet mixture or a rock-hard, misshapen lump stuffed with congealed strawberries. She's been trying to work out what she's doing wrong but she can't seem to figure it out. She followed everything in the goddamned cookbook, down to the—

Oh no. The ganache is bubbling over.

She scrambles over towards it, eyes widening in horror when she sees that it's become a revolting, goopy mixture.

When her eyes catch sight at the carton of whipping cream, she quickly grabs it and dunks its remaining contents into the steaming pot. She snatches the flour and cornstarch too and starts flinging them into the pot, beads of sweat running across the sides of her face. The mixture bubbles over even more and she seizes the lid and clamps it on the pot with trembling fingers.

This is a disaster.

No.

 _She's_ a disaster.

She can't even cook right anymore. Of course she knew she'd be a little rusty but she didn't know that it would be this bad. God, she's so pathetic. She's an all-around fuck-up.

As she stares at the wonky, misshapen lumps of strawberry cake, she feels strangely disappointed in herself. Two jobs potentially lost in one day. She thought that she would have at least lasted the morning.

Okay, she needs to stop feeling sorry for herself. So she can't cook as well as she used to. Fine. Whatever. But she did bring her wallet with her. And from what she can remember, despite being a tiny village, Oma still has its fair share of bakeries.

With renewed vigor, she flips through the yellow pages of the directory, grabs the phone, dials up the _Magnolia Bakery_ and places an order for one strawberry cake.

By twelve noon, Juvia is pacing back and forth in the kitchen, the suds and bubbles slapping against her ankles. With nothing left to do but wait, she's reverted back to her default of obsessing over her job. Only a few more hours until four. And then, they will deliberate her case. By five, she will know if she's truly fired or not.

The tension is unbearable.

She needs something to relieve it. _Anything_. She wrenches the door of the enormous fridge and pulls out a bottle of white wine, pouring herself a glass and taking an enormous gulp. She's just about to take another when she feels a tingling at the nape of her neck.

As if…she's being watched.

She swivels around and nearly jumps out of her skin. There's a man in the kitchen door.

He's tall with dark hair and serious gray eyes, wearing old jeans, a paint-splattered white shirt and chewed-up slippers. Vaguely, he seems familiar.

His eyes run doubtfully over to the suds on the floor, the counter full of misshapen, wonky strawberry cakes and the pots full of her failed attempts at making the ganache. Then his eyes wander over to the half-empty bottle of wine in her hand.

"Hi," he says at last. "Are you the new housekeeper?"

"Er…yes! Absolutely." She hastily puts the bottle of wine away and smooths her skirt. Then, she makes a short bow. "Rokusa Juvia."

"Furubasuta Gray," he promptly responds. Furubasuta Gray….the name sounds vaguely familiar—

Juvia's muscles suddenly seize with panic.

Oh no.

He's her boss. The one on the painting. Great. Just great. A day hasn't even passed and already, she's shown her employer just how incompetent she is. He'll probably fire her on the spot.

His attention is still on the wine bottle. Juvia doesn't think she likes his expression.

"Juvia was just about to…" She discreetly attempts to read the recipe book. "…use this to glaze the frosting…so…she can add it to the cake…"

With a nonchalant air, she grabs another saucepan from the rack, puts it on the stove and pours the wine in. Then, she grabs a cupful of sugar and dumps them into the pan before stirring the mixture with a wooden spoon.

She darts a glance at Gray. He is looking at her with increasing incredulity.

"Erza told me that you trained in some fancy cooking school," he slowly says.

"That's right."

"Where did you say you trained?" he asks.

Juvia feels a twinge of alarm. He's not an idiot, this man.

In an attempt to distract herself, she tries to open the pot full of her ganache only to let out a scream when she realizes how hot it is.

After taking several deep breaths, she turns around to face him and forces out a confident smile. "At Cordon Bleu…school. Under…Michel de la Escargot."

He raises a brow.

Her cheeks grow warmer. She dumps more sugar into the wine and stirs it briskly.

"Escargot? As in the dish?"

"It can also be a French name!" she defensively says.

"Then shouldn't it be L'Escargot?" he calmly asks, pronouncing the foreign word perfectly.

There's something about the patronizing tone of his voice that gets her hackles rising.

"Yes. Yes, Juvia knew that. But that's really his name. And excuse you," she hotly says. "But if Juvia is correct, between the two of us, she's the one who has gone to a _French_ school to study… _French_ dishes!"

"I actually studied in Paris for a year," Gray says.

Oh.

Okay.

"And you haven't turned the stove on," he observes.

"It's a cold sauce," she replies, directing her attention back to her concoction and avoiding his gaze. She keeps stirring for a minute before putting the wooden spoon down. "So. Juvia will just leave that to…marinate now."

At last, she turns back around, hoping that Gray has left. No such luck. He's still there, leaning against the doorframe, calmly watching her. There's an expression in his gray eyes that makes her throat tighten.

He knows.

He knows she's a fake.

"Juvia!"

Juvia starts nervously, nearly knocking the saucepan off the stove.

Erza's head pops round the door. "Oh, so you two have finally met!"

"Yes…we have," Juvia mumbles.

"I have lunch for all of us!" she says. "I expect dessert to be ready after me and Gray eat. Gray, I'll just be waiting in the dining room."

Juvia automatically bobs a curtsy as Erza sweeps out of the room. Just as she's about to return to her sauce, she hears a snorting sound from Gray.

"You curtsy," he says.

"Yes, Juvia does!" she defiantly retorts. "Anything wrong with that?"

He doesn't answer her. Instead, his eyes move to the bubbling pot filled with her ganache.

"Is that for the cake?"

"Yes!" she snaps, flustered. "And with all due respect Furubu—Furba—Furaba—Gray-sama!"

God, why is his last name so difficult to pronounce?

"But can you please get out of my kitchen? Juvia needs a clear space to work in," she says in an imperious voice.

He raises his brows. "Alright, then. See you around. Good luck with the sauce."

He nods towards the pan of wine before walking out of the door.

Once he's gone, she grabs the phone and dials the baker. But they've left their machine on.

"Hi," Juvia breathlessly says after the bleep. "Juvia ordered a cake earlier? Well, she needs it _now_. As soon as you can. _Please_."

As she puts the phone down, she realizes just how fruitless it all is. The bakers are never going to show up on time. It probably won't take long for Erza and Gray to finish lunch. She'll have an hour at most.

Okay. She can do this. She can make a cake.

The ganache is already bubbling anyway. All she has to do is make the cake itself. That shouldn't take very long, should it?

Slowly, she moves over to the pot full of her ganache, cringing when she sees that that her ganache has formed into a solid, stiff lump. She tentatively pokes at it with a spoon.

It has to be right. It has to be. She feverishly starts stabbing at the lump, trying to get it to somehow liquefy. Maybe if she pours it out of the pot, it will turn watery, by some amazing law of culinary physics. Forgetting to put on mitts, she grabs at the pot's handles only to spring backwards, scalded.

Finally, she manages to get the lump out of the pot. It's still as hard as ever. She's never seen anything more revolting in her whole life.

This is it then. Time for her resignation. One more job she's botched in her resume.

A loud knock on the backdoor breaks her out of her reverie and Juvia whips round to see a girl in a bright, green cap peering through the kitchen window.

"Hello!" she calls out. "Did you order a wedding cake?"

* * *

It all happens so fast. One minute, she's standing there, looking at her botch of strawberries and cake crumbs. The next, three girls in green uniforms are attempting to squeeze in a five-tiered strawberry cake slathered in cream cheese fondant.

The cake is decorated with sugar roses, freshly cut strawberries and intricate, lace-like patterns made out of frosting. The tray the cake is set on is even covered with a delicate, white coaster woven in the pattern of angels playing the harp.

"I'm so sorry about the mix-up," the girl is saying. "But I honestly thought it was for a wedding of some sorts. We usually cater for big events and normally don't get orders for just one-layered cakes—''

"It's fine, it's fine," Juvia says, edging her towards the door. "Really. Just put it on Juvia's card…"

The door finally closes and she looks at the cake, dazed. She's never seen a more elaborate cake in her whole life. She's been to weddings and anniversaries and birthdays of course but this one is just on a whole other level.

"Juvia? Is the cake ready? Me and Gray are finished eating!" Erza calls out through the door.

"Um…yes! Juvia will just…prepare slices for you guys!" she calls back.

"No, it's alright! We'll just go there ourselves," Erza says.

From where she's standing, she can hear them approaching the kitchen, arguing loudly with each other.

"Well, of course I'll check her references, Gray. But I am a very _good_ judge of character. I am _not_ easily fooled…"

"I'm just saying that there's something odd about her—''

"You think there's something odd about everybody—''

"Ahem," Juvia says clearing her throat.

The two of them break off from their conversation, trailing off into silence when they see the massive cake standing on the kitchen counter.

"My goodness!" At last, Erza finds her voice. She walks closer, too shocked to notice that her kitchen is in shambles. "This…this is certainly very impressive!"

She looks as if her Christmas has just come early.

"Juvia made a five-tiered cake. She hopes that it isn't too much?" she says, trying to feign worry.

"There's no such thing as too much strawberry cake!" Erza declares.

"Oh. That's…good."

"Well!" Erza appears to be at a total loss. She walks over to the cake and carefully plucks out one of the sugar roses, looking absolutely astonished. "I don't even remembering having this much flour and sugar in the pantry."

"Er…Juvia found them…in the other pantry?" she weakly offers.

"Of course! You mean the one in the dirty kitchen!" Erza says, nodding her head in approval. "I had completely forgotten about that!"

"Well…good thing Juvia found it."

"Gray, isn't she amazing?"

Erza gives him a smug little look.

There's total silence as Gray surveys the cake. Juvia can't bring herself to meet his eyes. She feels as if she's losing her grip on sanity. She's standing in a kitchen in the middle of nowhere. In a black and white maid's uniform. With a frilly bonnet. Masquerading as a housekeeper who can magically make an elaborate, five-tiered cake appear out of thin air.

"Extraordinary," Gray finally says. Juvia risks looking up at him. He's gazing at her, his brows deeply furrowed as if he really can't make her out.

"That didn't take you long," he says, a slight question in his voice.

She offers him a weak smile. "Juvia…can be…pretty quick when she wants to be."

"Juvia is wonderful!" Erza slices herself a piece, shoves an entire forkful of strawberry cake into her mouth and practically swoons. "This cake is divine! The best I've ever eaten! They truly do teach you amazing things in those Cordon Bleu schools!"

Juvia nods her head, resolutely avoiding Gray's gaze.

"Oh, by the way," Erza says through mouthfuls of cake. "I've completely forgotten to tell you. Remember how I said that I'd take you around the village to show you around so we can buy ingredients and also get you some new clothes? To replace the ones that were stolen from you in the train?"

"W-What?"

"You know. The clothes you lost after your luggage was stolen."

"What luggage—oh. Right."

Like a tape recorder, she can hear her stupid voice prattling on.

" _Juvia's really sorry to be inconveniencing you but her luggage got stolen in the train and the authorities were really unhelpful…"_

"Well, I'm afraid I can't make it this afternoon. The business I've been attending to the whole morning dragged on far longer than expected."

Juvia stops dead.

No.

Not him.

Please don't say that Gray will be the one to show her around.

Please not Gray.

 _Please not Gray._

"So I've asked Gray to be the one to show you around!" Erza enthusiastically says. Of course. Of course it would be him. Who else would it be? No one else lives in this stupid house but the two of them.

"He's absolutely hopeless with clothes so you'll be on your own but I'm sure he will be very helpful in showing you the shops with the best ingredients!" she continues, oblivious to increasingly panicked expression on Juvia's face.

"You could still be the one to take her you know, if you would just let me handle the meeting," Gray says, shooting Erza a slightly resentful look.

As if a switch has been turned on, the entire kitchen is suddenly enveloped with a kind of tension.

Erza stiffens, looking at everywhere but Gray.

Finally, she says, "You know you can't. Not yet. You're supposed to be resting."

"I've rested enough!" he argues.

"No, you haven't," Erza says in a hard voice. She and Gray are immediately locked into a staring match that lasts for several moments. Juvia takes a step back, feeling as though she's unwittingly entered into something personal.

"Juvia can…go around the village by herself!" she interjects. A trip around the village doesn't sound so bad. At least she'll be able to find a charger for her phone. And besides, she's lived here before so she's pretty sure she won't get lost. "She's sure she won't have trouble navigating around—''

"Juvia, please," Erza sternly says, effectively silencing her. Then, she turns to face Gray.

"You _will_ take Juvia around town. You _will_ show her the shops. And you _will_ get her clothes. That's final," Erza says in a voice that leaves no room for argument.

"Fine," he gruffly says. He sounds as if he's being asked to drag his body across a bed of nails.

Well.

It's not as if she wants to be alone with him either.

"I'll take her."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Thank you very much for the reviews! I know that housekeepers normally don't wear the black and white outfit anymore (I don't know about you guys but here, they were something similar to the hospital scrubs nurses wear) but then, where would the fun be if she didn't wear anything like that? ;) The fic will deviate from the book's storyline from this point on.

I'd just like to reply to a couple of anon reviews:

 **Guest:** Thank you for reviewing! I hope it will be good as well hahahaha

 **Anuko50:** Thank you so much! I'm glad you were interested enough to finish the first chapter xD And I had fun reading all your speculations. Updates will be weekly so no worries.

Thank you again to everyone else who reviewed! Until next time.


	3. Chapter 3

**Three**

* * *

"I have to get to the meeting in a few minutes," Erza says, polishing the last few cake crumbs off her plate.

She devoured, to Juvia's shock, three tiers of the cake (and would have probably eaten the other two if Gray hadn't asked her if she didn't want to save some for dinner). After their little standoff, Gray and Erza fell back into comfortable conversation, leaving Juvia with enough time to clean the kitchen and throw away the batches of misshapen cakes.

By the time they finished talking, the kitchen no longer looked as if a tornado had ripped through it and Juvia had positioned herself in front of the counter, wiping the surface in meaningless circles over and over again.

"You two should get going too!" Erza declares. "You know how early shops close here. Juvia, do you have your list?"

Gray is staring intently at her, a suspicious, almost challenging look on his face.

"Yes, Juvia has!" she triumphantly says, pulling out a crinkly sheet of paper. She shoots Gray a smug smile. After cleaning everything up, she went through the cookbooks and scribbled down the ingredients for several recipes, even taking the time to practice the pronunciation of the foreign dishes. Hah. Take that Mr.-I-Studied-In-Paris-For-A-Year.

Gray meets her gaze looking unperturbed.

"Erza told me you were going to cook something European for us this dinner," he says.

Her smile falters.

"Juvia wanted it to be a surprise," Erza says.

"But I'll be helping her buy the ingredients so it won't be much of a surprise anymore now, won't it?" Gray says.

Juvia thickly swallows.

"Juvia supposes…Gray-sama is right. She plans on cooking some…bœuf bourguignon," she says, completely mangling the pronunciation despite her repeated practices.

"That sounds delicious! What's that?" Erza asks.

"Beef stewed in red wine," she promptly replies. God, it feels so good to finally be on top of things. Maybe she should memorize more recipes in her spare time.

Gray's face remains impassive but there's a glint in his eyes that she does _not_ like.

"Shame," he casually says. "I was actually looking forward to your Eiffel. The dish of course. Not the tower."

Damn.

She never should have said that.

Why couldn't she have said that she knew how to cook soufflés or…or onion soups instead?

What the hell was she thinking?

No, she _wasn't_ thinking.

And that's exactly why she's in this situation.

"Oh yes! About that. Juvia, I need to have a serious talk with you about the Eiffel dish," Erza sternly says. "Gray was just telling me about it—''

Shit. _Shit_. He's studied in Paris for a year. He must have told Erza that a ridiculous dish named the Eiffel does not exist.

"—and how he couldn't stop eating Eiffels while he was in Paris. I've been dying to try some ever since. I think you should cook that for dinner instead," Erza says, looking at her expectantly. From the corner of Juvia's eye, she can see Gray trying his very best to suppress a smirk.

 _Bastard._

He's trying to mess with her. That can be the only reason why he's decided to play along with her little ruse.

"Ah yes. But the thing is Erza-san…" She pauses for a moment and struggles to think of a plausible excuse.

"The Eiffel…dish…is very complex and requires special equipment," she says in sudden inspiration. "Special equipment that you unfortunately do not have. Juvia is afraid that if she uses them, she won't be able to create a dish that is up to her professional standards."

"Oh," Erza says, looking disappointed.

"But Juvia is sure she can make a very delicious pot of bœuf bourguignon!" she hastily says. "Which is almost as good as an Eiffel!"

"That's true," Gray interjects, to her relief. "Bœuf bourguignon was one of my most favorite dishes when I went to Paris."

"Well, alright then," Erza says. "Beef it is!"

She then starts making shooing motions with her hands. "Now, you two better get going. You wouldn't want the shops to close up on you."

"Er…right!" Juvia says.

"Are those shoes comfortable?" Gray suddenly asks, eyeing her hideous black clogs. "Oma is a small town so we won't be taking the car. We'll just walk."

She already expected that. From what she remembered, a lot of residents in Oma only used their cars for out of town trips. Her parents owned a tiny, beat-up Toyota but they only used that whenever they went to Mutsu or Koroishi. Usually, they would just walk or bike up and down the interiors of the village. Some of her best memories were walking down the harbor or eating some ice cream with Gajeel while they sat on a bench overlooking the Tsugaru Channel.

"Yes, they're very comfortable. But actually…Juvia was wondering if she could just wear the clothes she wore from the night before?"

There is no way she is going to parade around her hometown wearing this ridiculous outfit and give all her old neighbors a good reason to talk about her.

"Oh you mean the pencil skirt and that blue blouse?" Erza says. "I already threw them in the wash. I found your stuff in the bathroom and decided to just throw your clothes in with the rest of our dirty laundry to the washing machine."

Juvia blinks back at her in horror.

Oh god.

No.

If her clothes are in the wash then that means she has no choice but to follow Gray around town in her uniform. She can perhaps take the bonnet off but not the apron since it's sewn together with the outfit. She takes a step back, unable to contain the grimace on her face. The thought of all her neighbors thinking that she's a housekeeper after she and Gajeel made such a big deal about leaving their small town to study law. They'll think that she's failed. That she's come back with her tail between her legs.

But then, at this point, being a housekeeper is better than a lawyer who's lost her company fifty million. At least Juvia the Maid hasn't made any big fuck-ups yet.

And besides, how is she to know if her neighbors are still here? People come and go. Many of them might have all left for the big city. And she's not even going to stay in Oma for very long so it doesn't really matter what everyone here thinks of her now, does it?

"Juvia? It's not going to be a problem, is it?" Erza asks.

Juvia gives her a weak smile. "Nope. No problem at all."

"Great! I'll see the two of you before dinnertime," Erza says.

There's an expectant pause. Suddenly, Juvia realizes that Erza is waiting for her to curtsy. She starts to prickle all over in embarrassment. Why the hell did she curtsy? _Why_?

"Very good, Erza-san," Juvia says. Then, in an afterthought, she adds, "And…Gray-sama."

She bows her head and makes an awkward bob.

When she looks up, she finds Erza giving a satisfied nod and the beginnings of a faint smile on Gray's face.

She's too busy trying to get over her mortification to realize that smiling actually, kind of, sort, suits him.

* * *

The two of them leave the house without exchanging a word.

Gray is calmly striding along the sidewalk as Juvia walks behind him, trying to banish her growing anxiety. She knows that he's suspicious of her and that unlike Erza, he _must_ have an inkling that she's a fake. She doesn't know why he hasn't called her out on it and she's terrified that he'll have some sort of dramatic confrontation with her now that they're alone.

"I'll be showing you the open market first to get some vegetables. There's a supermarket here but the produce isn't very fresh," Gray finally speaks up. "You trained with a Michelin-starred chef, right?"

"Right," Juvia says, feeling a tiny swoop of relief that he hasn't decided to call her out on her ruse or allude to any more fictional French dishes. Secretly, she hopes that the strawberry cake was enough to throw him off.

"I don't know what kind of fancy stuff you use but I'm sure we'll be able to get good alternatives in the market. I saw that you've put some brassicas on your list. Which brassicas do you like to use?" he asks.

To her horror, the words fly out of her mouth before she can stop them.

"The push-up ones because they make Juvia's cleavage look good."

Gray abruptly stops in his place.

Juvia looks away from him, focusing on the busy wharf in the distance.

How mortifying.

She just told her employer the type of bra she prefers.

When he wasn't even asking her about bras in the first place. What the hell is wrong with her?

But then, it's not entirely her fault. He can't just say the word "brassicas" and not expect her to think about underwear.

At least she didn't blurt out her bra size. That would have been more embarrassing.

"Come again?" he says.

Juvia forces herself to look away from the wharf to face him, her cheeks an unflattering shade of puce. Gray still has the same bland, impassive expression on his face but now his cheeks look a little pink. Briefly, his eyes flicker over to her chest but then just as quickly, they snap back to meet her eyes. His jaw is tight and his gaze is unblinking, almost as if he's forcing himself not to look at her chest.

"Er…what Juvia meant to say is that…" She tries to grope for a competent-sounding phrase.

What are brassicas in the first place?

She just copied them off the book without really thinking about it. They must be some kind of vegetable. She frantically searches her mind but all she see are different images of brassieres floating in the wind.

"Juvia would have to consult her menus," she says with a businesslike nod. "She'll get back to you on that one."

"But just generally," Gray persists. "We're heading there anyway so we might as well pick some up."

Juvia thickly swallows. She dare not name a single vegetable in case she gets it totally wrong.

"Juvia…uses all sorts really," she says, giving him an airy smile. "You know how it is with brassicas! Sometimes you're in the mood for one…sometimes another!"

At this point, she's not even sure if she's still talking about the vegetable or her bras.

Gray just looks baffled.

"Okay, then. What about leeks? Takeru plants all kinds but we should tell him which ones we want ahead of time so he can prepare," he says after a moment of silence. "What variety do you prefer? Albinstar or Bleu de Solaise?"

Leeks. She knows about this. There's this one variety her mother always gets because it's uncharacteristically sweet. But as hard as she tries, she can't remember the name of the variety.

It's always been just…leeks.

She fiddles with a button on her uniform, her face prickling as she tries to remember the names he's just mentioned. She didn't catch either of those. It didn't help that they were foreign-sounding words. Why does he know so much about plants in the first place? He's not even a gardener. He's a—Actually, she doesn't know what his job is. She's not even entirely sure why he's in Oma if he's such an important person. She would have thought he'd be based in Tokyo where all the big companies are. She would ask him except that, that might lead him to asking why she didn't read about his occupation in the brief the agency gave her.

"The…um…first one," she says at last. "It has…very tasty qualities. Sweeter than the average leek."

Gray is looking at her with furrowed brows, the confusion on his face replaced with an expression that she does not like.

"By the way, why do you know much about plants?" she counters, in an effort to distract him from her ineptitude.

His face suddenly closes up.

"I have a lot of free time on my hands," he shortly says.

He turns away from her and starts stomping to the open market. Juvia trails after him, feeling guilty. She's clearly touched a nerve. She wants to apologize except that she's terrified that she'll just make the situation worse by blurting out another nonsensical thing.

Honestly, she should just shut up.

Her talking has gotten her to several ridiculous moments since she's arrived so it's probably better for everyone if she was just struck mute.

Feeling chastened, she bows her head down and tries to adopt the most humble expression she can muster. He doesn't ask her anymore questions and they walk towards the marketplace in silence.

Now that she's no longer stressing over Gray confronting her or trying to come up with vaguely believable answers to his questions, she finds that she can examine Oma with a more careful eye. It hasn't changed much despite the years. Nestled in between the Hokkaido mountains and the majestic Tsugaru Strait, the town is still as secluded as ever. Growing up, she could never really shake off the feeling that she lived in an outpost at the very edge of the globe.

In front of her, the mountains rose, stretching out like a great quilt of blue frost and golden brown squares held together by the thick green stitching of hedgerows. Unpolished and vaguely rustic looking houses would sometimes break the swathe of pine trees and apple blossoms that shaded the sidewalk. Eventually, the road starts curving along the channel where the afternoon sun is shining on the sea, masking it with a beautiful apricot color that fades into a gorgeous turquoise.

Despite herself, she begins to relax. It feels as if she's finally managed to exhale a long breath she didn't even know she had been holding. _She misses home._ She misses walking along the old, honey-colored stone walls, the white-washed cottages with steeply-pitched roofs, the summer fireworks in the wharf area during the Blue Marine festival. She misses sailing boats with Gajeel and running along the harbor and going on trips at Hugenin Temple. Why did she and Gajeel never visit? They should have.

When she gets back to Tokyo, she's going to _insist_ that they come back here and visit.

That is, if she still has a job.

And if she does get to keep her job, there's no guarantee that she and Gajeel will even have time for vacation. She has weekends off but most of the time, she uses them to study cases. She's been to other countries but never on holidays. She specializes in international contracts so she usually gets sent abroad whenever a Japanese company wants to partner with another company in another country. She's been to a handful of Asian countries like China, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines several times and the United States twice. But she's always spent her time overseas holed up in an office, haggling and arguing with other lawyers.

She never goes out much, she suddenly realizes.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

She's…busy.

Plenty of people are busy. She has a high-powered job, her career is important to her and she loves it. That's perfectly fine.

"Juvia?" Gray says.

"Yes, Gray-sama?" she distractedly replies.

They've moved away from the town proper now, into the marketplace where the salty smell of the sea mingles with the aroma of spices and the sweet scent of flowers and freshly-plucked vegetables. Several people are loudly hawking their wares while the others are fanning themselves, trying to keep cool from the sweltering heat.

"This is Takeru. He comes up with the best produce in Oma," Gray says, gesturing at a fat, oily man with prickly, black hair. Juvia squints at him, trying to see if he's some sort of childhood friend or classmate she might have forgotten about. But he doesn't flicker at her appearance. In fact, nobody seems to have recognized her yet.

So far, so good.

"You must be the new maid!" Takeru says, bowing. "I'm Hayami Takeru."

"Rokusa Juvia," she replies, giving a short bow in return.

"So," Takeru says, clapping his hands together. "What are you planning to get today?"

"Go on, Juvia," Gray mildly says. He raises a challenging brow. "Tell him what vegetables you're planning to get. You're the expert."

Juvia nervously swallows and after several deep breaths, turns to face the stand loaded with vegetables. She can do this. If worse comes to worst, she can always just read the list of ingredients she's copied off from the recipe books out loud.

The moment she sees the variety of produce, to her surprise, her muscles relax. She knows these vegetables. Maybe not by name. Or by variety. But she _knows_ them. As a child, she spent countless of hours with her mother, going to this very same marketplace, haggling for cheaper prices and better deals.

"Juvia would like some of those," she confidently says, pointing to a cluster of spinach.

"Good eye!" Takeru praises, looking extremely impressed. "I just picked those! They're very fresh."

Juvia's triumphant smile widens when she sees the look of surprise on Gray's face.

Hah.

She'll show him.

"And some of these!" she says, expertly handling a couple of leeks. "These are sweeter than the other varieties."

"Ah yes, of course! The Albinstar variety. Well done," Takeru says.

By the time they've finished, Takeru still hasn't stopped praising Juvia for her keen eyes and telling her that she should consider a career in horticulture.

Gray keeps looking at her as if he can't figure her out.

She doesn't exactly blame him.

She can't really figure herself out right now either.

* * *

They go through the rest of the shops without any more major calamities. Nobody seems to recognize her and they don't run into anyone she knows. At some point, Gray shows her Magnolia Bakery and after a bit of a scuffle where Juvia accidentally stubs his toe in an attempt to keep them from entering the shop, they move on to the town hall and the Omazaki monument.

Eventually, they go to a shop that sells the best baking implements in the whole town. Juvia once again, attempts to get out of it because she knows for a fact that Belno owns the shop. Belno was this nice old lady who never failed to knit Juvia and Gajeel sweaters for their birthdays. Whenever they would feel hungry, they would drop by her shop and she would feed them ginger snaps and butterscotch brownies.

She has no idea if Belno still owns the shop but she is not taking any chances. She would have done the toe-stubbing thing again except Gray told her that Erza was expecting several more strawberry cakes in the future and Juvia most certainly did _not_ want to see her displeased.

He didn't sound like he was joking.

Luckily, Belno doesn't seem to run the shop anymore. Instead, a bored man wearing a checkered polo and wire-rimmed glasses is manning the register and the entire place lacks Belno's distinct cinnamon-honey perfume.

Feeling relieved, she grabs one of the shop carts and begins to systematically grab packets of flour, sugar and chocolate chips. Gray is silently trailing after her, carrying the plastic bag full of the meat and vegetables they've bought. Since the vegetable incident, he's stopped giving her suspicious looks and seems to be content with just letting her do whatever she wants.

They're in the middle of the aisle filled with bottles of oil when a familiar voice comes across the gentle buzz of customers.

"Ed, how many times do I have to tell you that you're supposed to arrange the savarin molds this way?"

"Grandma! What are you doing here? You know that I can run the shop alone!"

Juvia pauses, her eyes wide with startled recognition.

Belno?

Instinctively, she abandons the canola oil she's holding and shrinks back, trying to hide behind the adjacent cheese rack. Her eyes scan the queue and land on a colorful poncho. Shit. There she is. Talking with the guy she saw at the cashier.

"Well, how do you expect me to be comfortable with leaving you to handle the shop on your own when you can't even arrange the savarin molds properly?" Belno crossly says.

"Jesus Christ, grandma! They're just molds!"

Surreptitiously, she looks around, trying to find the best possible escape route. But there are massive mirrors everywhere. Belno is bound to spot her. She has no choice. She'll have to wait it out here until Belno leaves. Maybe she should hide behind the giant cheese wheel. In her haste, a few packets of cheese tumble from their places and plop on her head.

She's so engrossed in trying to blend into the cheese stand that she's completely forgotten about Gray and doesn't realize that he's calling her until he strides out of the cooking oil aisle and stands in front of her.

"Juvia! Juvia! Ju—''

He stops, looking absolutely gobsmacked. His eyes trail over to her figure, pressed up against the cheese rack and then to the giant cheese wheel she's hugging and the lobs of blue cheese and packets of grated parmesan on her head.

"Er, hi!" she tries to sound casually nonchalant, as if it was always the plan to be found lurking around in the cheese aisle, hugging a giant cheese wheel.

"Juvia was just looking for some cheese for her…cheese puffs," she mumbles. If she could bury herself farther against the rack, she would.

"And you needed to hug an entire cheese wheel for it?" Despite the incredulous look on his face, his voice sounds bemused.

"Well." She clears her throat several times. "She's just testing the texture of the cheese to see how well they….puff as the word "puff"…obviously comes from the airy nature of the er…finish and complements the...cheese. Puffs," she hastily amends. "The…blend of flavors."

"The blend of flavors," Gray deadpans.

"Right," she replies, her cheeks flaming.

"And I suppose that's also the reason why you've put some cheese on top of your head," he conversationally says. He looks as impassive as ever despite the imperceptible twitch of the corners of his lips.

"Yes," she squeaks out, utterly embarrassed.

What happened to her not talking and saying stupid things?

To his credit, Gray doesn't point out the ridiculousness of her lie. Instead, he holds a hand out and jerks his head in the direction of the fruit area.

"Come on. We haven't got all afternoon to test the texture of cheeses. We still have to get the strawberries for Erza's cake," he says.

"Actually, it's quite comfortable here so Juvia will probably just stay where she is," she anxiously says. As embarrassing as the whole cheese puff debacle is, Belno seeing her in a maid's outfit is even more humiliating.

Gray doesn't flicker.

"I need your help picking the strawberries out to make sure we get the freshest ones. I wouldn't want to get Erza anything subpar," he patiently explains.

Juvia gazes up at him, wanting nothing more than to mentally communicate to him: _Juvia can't stand up and walk around the shop because her old neighbor will see her in a maid's uniform!_

But she can't do that, can she?

And even if she can, it's a fairly long telepathic message that she's not even sure Jean Grey can properly convey.

Okay, she needs to stop.

She needs to just suck it up and deal with whatever happens. And besides, the shop is pretty big. If she does this properly, she's sure she will be able to navigate them away from Belno.

With a deep sigh, she hands him the cheese wheel and then grabs his hand as he pulls her up. She looks at him, surprised at how rough and calloused his fingers are. It's like holding the hand of tree bark.

"It's from all the drawing and model-building," he says when he catches the expression on her face.

"Oh! You draw?" she says.

He gives her another bemused look.

"Yes. That's kind of what architects do. They draw designs," he says as he steps aside so she can push the cart. "And build design models."

"Oh, right," she mumbles. She's supposed to know this. She's supposed to have read the brief. "You must design a lot of buildings then to get hands like that."

A slightly resentful look crosses his face but his voice is even when he says, "Not in a while—"

He stops as Juvia abruptly swerves to the right. Rounding the corner is Belno and her grandson, arguing about bread bins.

"Juvia? What are you—''

"We should go here!"

"What? But why—ow fuck! My toe!''

In her haste, she accidentally ran over his toe. The toe which she's already stubbed before. Fuck.

"Oh god. Juvia is so, _so_ sorry," she says. "Do you need her to look at it?"

He waves her off with his free hand. "No, no, I'm good. I just—just give me a minute."

"Of course. Although we really should go here. _Now_ ," she urgently says.

"But the fruit section is right there—''

"Um…this way is quicker," she hastily improvises.

"The fruit section was literally right in front of us. Now we have to go around this aisle," Gray incredulously says. He's regarding her with a completely baffled expression but she's too busy trying to avoid Belno to care.

Eventually, they reach the strawberries and after hurriedly picking the first few fistfuls she sees, Juvia anxiously guides them around the shop, suddenly swerving and turning around whenever she runs into Belno. God, this is insane. Why can't the old lady just stay put?

Meanwhile, Gray is growing more and more confused by the second and Juvia has no doubt that he probably thinks his new housekeeper is a full blown basket case. When they finally have the last ingredient, she breathes a sigh of relief, thankful that it's over and that they haven't run into Belno at all. Now, all they need to do is pay at the cash register and—

Oh fuck.

Belno's commandeered the cash register.

Out of reflex, she immediately hides behind Gray. It's a good thing he's rather tall and broad-shouldered.

"Gray-san! Long time no see! What are you doing out here? Have you gotten into baking?" Belno pleasantly says.

"No. We got a new housekeeper actually," Gray replies. And then, in a wry voice, he adds, "And she's a fantastic cook. Trained with a Michelin-starred chef."

"That's certainly very impressive!" Belno says, her eyes wide like saucers. "And that's quite a haul you've got there."

"You know how Erza is with cake," Gray says as he turns slightly to the side to get his wallet from his pocket. Juvia follows his figure, determined not to let Belno see her.

"Well, I'm just glad you're finally out of the house. You know I've been telling Erza that it's not healthy for you to be holed up in there. You need to go out more," Belno says, clucking her tongue.

"I know. Erza has been telling me constantly," Gray says, facing the front again. Juvia promptly mirrors his movements.

"Well, I hope you had a nice afternoon out. The weather has been really nice lately you know. It's not as cold anymore."

"I actually like the cold weather better. But yes, I did have a great afternoon. Juvia—''

" _Juvia_?" Belno nearly drops the packet of flour she's holding.

"Yes. Our new housekeeper—''

" _Housekeeper?"_ She gasps in shock.

Gray frowns at her and gestures at his side. "Yes. Oh right. I never introduced you two. Belno, this is…"

He trails off when he realizes that Juvia is no longer beside him. Confused, he turns around, nearly tripping backwards when he sees Juvia hiding behind him, smiling sheepishly.

"Juvia! What are you doing there?" he says, confused.

Before she can reply, Belno cuts her off.

"Juvia! Rokusa Juvia…so...so it's true then! You really are Gray's new housekeeper," Belno says, her voice lacerating as she takes in Juvia's starchy apron and the black clogs. It's a good thing she took the bonnet off, otherwise Belno might have thrown a conniption.

"Hi…Belno-san," Juvia mumbles, hesitantly stepping away from Gray.

The dimple in between his brows deepen. "You know each other?"

"Know each other! My boy, I practically helped raised Juvia! She used to come here all the time along with her friend Gajeel," Belno exclaims.

"You lived here?" Gray says, turning to face her.

She wordlessly nods her head.

"My goodness! When Gray said Juvia was the name of his new housekeeper I thought to myself: "Surely, this can't be our very own Juvia!'" Belno says, sounding strangled.

Juvia looks at the ground, aware that there's nothing she can say. Belno is looking at her with an absolutely devastated expression. She looks as if she wants to cry.

"Why not?" Gray asks.

"Because…" For a moment, Belno seems unable to speak. She awkwardly takes her spectacles off and begins to vigorously wipe them. "Because…well it's just that...I assumed you would be a lawyer. I mean the last I heard from Metallicana before he died was that you and Gajeel got accepted into the law program of Tokyo University."

Juvia can't bear it.

She can't stand the disappointed expression on Belno's face. She wants nothing more than to fling herself against Belno and confess everything; clear up the misunderstanding and say that she did become a lawyer, that she still _is_ a lawyer. But doing so would mean having to explain why she's here in a maid's uniform. Explaining why means having to admit that she went through some sort of breakdown yesterday and she's quite sure that doing so would just dredge up allusions about the way she reacted after finding out about her parents' deaths. She can't stand that. She can't stand having to hear whispers from people about _unhinged_ she is all over again.

But most of all, she can't stand everyone knowing about what she did. Admitting that she might have done a really stupid, rash, insane gesture means telling the whole story about Fearī Teiru and how she lost them fifty million yen. And for some reason, that feels even worse. She can't tell Belno that she had it all, only to completely fuck everything up just moments before reaching the finish line.

Coming back as a housekeeper seems better than coming back as a disgraced lawyer.

"Plans…change," Juvia says at last.

"Of course! Of course!" Belno says, obviously forcing herself to nod animatedly. "And being a housekeeper is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of! It's a perfectly decent profession."

"Yes, it is," she replies, trying desperately to keep her smile frozen in place. From beside her, Gray begins to grab all the things they've shopped for and put them on the counter.

"So, I take it that you're staying with Gray and Erza?" Belno says as she rings the items up. She sounds less stilted now but her bright voice does not match her face.

"Yes. The job comes with free board and lodging," she lamely replies.

Belno gently puts a hand on top of Juvia's arm and gives her a gentle, kind smile. Juvia can feel her bottom lip trembling but she refuses to admit, even to herself, that anything is wrong. This is fine. So Belno thinks she's a housekeeper. That's okay. What's wrong with being a housekeeper, anyway? Housekeepers work hard and they clean up after everyone's messes and they make sure that other people's live are orderly and well put-together. And as Belno said, it's a perfectly decent profession.

"I do hope that you'll drop by in my house during your breaks. Gray gives you breaks right? He isn't mistreating you now, is he?" Belno says, suddenly shooting Gray a suspicious look. "If he does, do not be afraid to tell me! He may be some bigshot billionaire but I'll have you know, I still have this village wrapped around my little finger."

Despite herself, Juvia can feel the beginnings of a smile. She has no doubt that Belno is telling the truth. As mild mannered as she seems, she's terrifying enough to frighten even Gajeel.

"Don't worry. Gray-sama has been a very good boss to Juvia," Juvia says. "He's been showing Juvia around town. We went to buy some ingredients."

"Really? Like what?"

"Push-up brassicas," Gray deadpans, giving Juvia a meaningful look. She glowers back at him, flushing in mortification.

Great.

 _Now_ he decides to get a sense of humor.

"I'm sorry, come again?" Belno says.

"We bought brassicas! Anyways, if this is all Belno-san, Gray-sama will just pay for everything and we'll be on our way!" Juvia hastily says before Belno can ask for further clarifications.

"Yes, of course! Please do drop by, dear!" Belno says as she puts the last of their purchases into the paper bags. And then, in afterthought she adds, "Although maybe not this weekend. Me and the whole family will be going to Mutsu."

"Juvia will keep that in mind! Alright, bye!" Juvia says, dragging Gray out of the shop before he can protest.

Once they're safely outside, the smile she has plastered on her face slowly disappears. Everything feels so crap. She's supposed to come back to Oma with her life put together, not in shambles.

One mistake. She made one big mistake. People are allowed to make one mistake in life. It's in the rules. And if it's not, then it should be.

"Juvia," Gray quietly says.

She turns her head a fraction of an inch to face him. His gaze is soft and instead of the usual implacable or bemused expression on his face, he's looking at her with sympathy. Immediately, she feels a new wave of humiliation wash over her. She cannot stand his pity. She's in a pretty edgy mood as it is, and if he says anything nice to her, she'll burst into tears.

"What?" The words comes out in a harsher tone than she meant to.

He opens his mouth to speak then stops, hesitating, brows furrowed almost as if he is calculating or contemplating something. After a moment of silence, he raises the slew of paper and plastic bags he has in his arms. "A little help?"

"Oh," Juvia says, embarrassed. "Of course."

She'd been so wrapped up in everything that she wasn't even aware that she had pawned off all their purchases to Gray.

Chastened, she steps forward and takes half of the bags he's carrying. To her surprise, she discovers that he's given her the lightest ones, leaving him to carry the heavier bags. Which is something that she honestly didn't expect from him. After all, she is his housekeeper. If anything, she should have gotten the heavier ones so that he can walk back home comfortably. It's practically part of her job description.

On the way to the shopping district he buys her an ice cream cone and insists that they have a seat in one of the benches facing the Tsugaru Channel.

"This my favorite spot in the city," he tells her.

Juvia looks at him in surprise. "Juvia's too! She had some of her best memories in this bench."

"I used to come here a lot when I first came to Oma. There's just something about the ocean that calms me down," he says. The afternoon sun is shining on the sea, where one or two boats are anchored by the harbor. From where they are sitting, she can see downtown Hakodate on the other side of the strait and the lighthouse on Bentenjima.

"It's really beautiful isn't it?" he quietly asks.

She can feel herself relaxing, the last vestiges of embarrassment and humiliation disappearing. It's as if it's just her and the ocean. Briefly, she wonders if Gray did this for her benefit.

"Yes, it is," she says.

He truly is quite nice.

* * *

The two of them are back in the house by five o'clock. Juvia hurriedly crams all the food they've bought into the fridge before rushing upstairs.

Things ran smoothly after the whole incident with Belno. They went to an entire street full of clothing shops where Gray gave her a budget and told her to buy whatever while he waited in a nearby coffee shop. While she was on her own, she went to a quaint, European restaurant and ordered some beef stew for take-away. As much as she wanted to get back into the swing of things with her cooking, she would really rather not have a repeat of what happened yesterday. Afterwards, they stopped by a tiny shop that sold gadgets and other electronic equipment. Gray raised his brows when he saw Juvia request for an Iphone charger (probably wondering how she even managed to afford one) but she was too anxious to come up with another one of her insane explanations.

Now, as she stares at the tiny, battery icon blinking, she can feel her heart palpitate wildly against her ribcage. It feels as if it's about to tear through her chest and escape out the window.

The meeting must be done by now. They would have made a decision.

Surreptitiously, she opens her phone.

Fifty new messages and thirty new e-mails.

The latest one coming from Aria.

The subject header reads "Notice of Termination."

She thickly swallows.

 _No._

It can't be.

She should read it but she can't bear to.

She looks out of the window at a small bird pecking at one of the branches of the cherry blossom trees, then turns away and presses her back against the wall, running her thumbnail obsessively around the fine grain of the wooden floor.

She needs to open the e-mail.

Just as she's about to open it, her phone rings.

It's Aria.

Something cold grips her spine. As she stares at his name, she feels real fear in a way she never had before. Childish, nightmarish fear. Every instinct in her body is telling her not answer.

But she needs to. She can't ignore everyone forever. Slowly, she lifts it up to her ear.

"Hello, Juvia. Akamatsu Aria here," he says in his usual somber voice.

"Right." Her voice is scratchy with nerves. "Hello."

There's a long pause. She knows that this is her moment to speak but her throat feels as if it's wadded with cotton wool. No words seem adequate. Everyone knows how much Aria despises apologies and excuses and explanations.

"Juvia, I'm sure you have already received the e-mail. But as per company policy, I am ringing to _personally_ tell you that your contract with Fantomu Rōdo has been terminated."

She feels all the blood drain from her face.

"The e-mail has been sent and a letter is on its way to give you the reasons." His tone is distant and formal. "Gross negligence compounded by your subsequent unprofessional behavior. Your dole will be wired to your bank account. Your pass has been disabled. I don't expect to see you at the Fantomu Rōdo offices again."

He's going too fast. This is all happening too fast.

"Please don't!" Juvia blurts out. "Please give Juvia another chance! She made one mistake. _One_."

"Lawyers at Fantomu Rōdo do not make mistakes Juvia. Nor do they _run_ away from their mistakes," Aria sternly tells her.

She can't believe how wrong she's played this. She can't believe how stupid she had been. She never should have stayed in Oma. She should have gone back the moment she could.

"She knew it was wrong to run away." She's shaking all over. "But it was such a shock…Juvia wasn't thinking straight…"

"You have disgraced the reputation of the firm and yourself." Aria's voice sharpens as if he, too, might be finding this difficult. "You have lost fifty million yen of a client's money through your own negligence. You are lucky that they have decided not press charges against you. And after making such an error, you have subsequently absconded with no explanation. Juvia, you cannot have expected any other outcome, surely."

There is a long silence. Her forehead is pressed hard against the heel of her hand. She tries to focus on just breathing. In. Out. In. Out.

Then it finally sinks in.

It's over.

Her entire career really is over.

Aria starts a pre-prepared speech about meeting with the human resources department but Juvia isn't even listening anymore. Everything she has worked for since she was twelve years old. Gone. Everything ruined. In twenty-four hours.

At last, she realizes that Aria has disappeared from the line. She gets on her feet and walks over to the mirror, staring at her haggard expression. Her eyes are huge, burning holes. For a long time, she just stands there, staring at her own face until the features blur.

She's been fired. The phrase echoes around her mind. She could collect the dole. Her pass has been disabled.

What is she going to do?

Go home.

But the thought of returning to the flat with Aria living two floors above her, makes her sick. She's sure to run into him. But she can't face him. She could phone Gajeel and ask if she could stay with him and his girlfriend but the thought of seeing her best friend get up and go to work every morning, seeing him in his suit and watching as he pores over case studies is too painful. Almost as painful as running into Belno in a maid's outfit.

 _She could stay here._

The idea lodges itself into her thoughts before she can properly dismiss it.

No, that's insane.

She can't masquerade as a maid forever. But she can't go home yet. She doesn't have the resolve to.

But whatever the case, she needs to call Gajeel and tell her that she's okay. He's left her about a million messages, each more frantic than the last.

She dials his number and after three rings, he answers. "Jesus Christ, Juvia! Where the fuck are you? You're not in your apartment, your landlord doesn't know where you are—''

"Gajeel," Juvia says, her voice trembling. "Juvia's fine. She's safe."

"Have you…" he trails off, suddenly sounding guarded.

"It's okay. Aria called. Juvia knows."

"Oh god. I'm so sorry this happened Juvia. _So sorry_ —''

"It's fine," she says, forcing her voice to sound cheerful. "Really. Juvia would rather not talk about it."

"It's going to be okay, Jujubee. I could ask around. Call in a few favors. I've already talked to some people and they're willing to take you on. Assuming all goes well, you'll enter at senior associate level. Where are you? We need to get together and run through your options."

"In a small village…" she haltingly says.

"Which village?"

She doesn't answer him. Even if she does get a job, she doesn't think she could bear all those other lawyers giving her looks. Whispering about her and her fifty million yen mistake.

"Juvia we really need to regroup, okay? If you want these companies to hire you, you have to work harder and re-double your efforts."

More hours. More work. More late nights. She feels as though concrete blocks are being loaded on her. It's too much. She doesn't want that now. She needs more time.

"Look, Gajeel-kun, it's okay," she finally says.

The strangest feeling is coming over her. She could stay. Its as simple as that. For however long it takes for her to…work herself out. She's miles away from Tokyo. No one knows she's here. She doesn't have to worry about running into anyone from the firm. She'll be safe.

You're not a housekeeper, a little voice reminds her. She can't clean. She can't cook. She might have been able to once, but years and years of avoiding everything related to her parents have left her with mediocre cooking and cleaning skills. But she could learn. She could learn it all.

She learned how to be a lawyer, didn't she? If she works hard at this, she's sure she can learn to be a housekeeper as well.

"It's alright, Gajeel-kun," she finally says. "You don't have to call in any favors. Juvia got a job."

Then, she clicks her phone shut.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Advanced MERRY CHRISTMAS to all of you! :) Hope you'll all have a good one. This one goes out as an early Christmas gift to my dear friend endingsarenotalwaysbad! Hope you'll enjoy it.

One thing I would just like to emphasize is that Juvia's mortification at being a housekeeper does not in any way reflect my opinions about the profession. She's just embarrassed because she figured that everyone expected her to come back as a lawyer. As always, I'd like to answer some anonymous reviews before I move on:

 **Guest:** Thank you very much for your review! I'm glad that the jokes landed although I can't take too much credit for some of them as I borrowed quite a lot from the book.

 **Katherine** : Thank you very much! Updates will be weekly :)

 **Jellybean:** Thank you very much! I hope you'll enjoy the other stories.

Thanks again to everyone who reviewed! Until next time.


	4. Chapter 4

**Four**

* * *

The only thing is, now she actually has to be a housekeeper.

The next morning, her alarm goes off at six-fifteen and after another crying spell (she's had about three since last night), she arrives in the kitchen before seven, already in her uniform. The garden is misty and there are no sounds, except for the cherry blossom trees swaying in the wind. She feels as though she's the only person awake in the world.

As quietly as she can, she empties the dishwasher and puts everything away in the cupboard before straightening out the chairs from underneath the table. After three tries, she makes coffee that doesn't taste like dishwasher and makes a couple of sandwiches for breakfast. Then, she looks around the gleaming granite counters.

Her domain.

Except…it doesn't feel like her domain. It feels like someone else's scary kitchen.

So…what should she do now? She feels twitchy, just standing there. She should be occupied. She should be doing something. Her mind suddenly flashes back to Tokyo, to her regular routine. If she were still in Fantomu Rōdo she would be hurriedly eating through a packet of Shreddies for breakfast or lining up for some coffee right now. Or maybe on the train, answering e-mails. She wonders how many e-mails are stacked up, unanswered, just waiting for her replies? The thought makes her slightly ill.

No.

Don't think about it.

Do something else.

There's a copy of _The Economist_ in the magazine rack by the table and she picks it up. She flips through and starts reading an article about international monetary controls, anxiously drumming her fingers against the counter top.

The sound of the kitchen door opening makes her start and she drops the magazine.

It's Gray.

"Good morning, Gray-sama," Juvia respectfully says.

"Good morning." He strides into the room, looking even more disheveled than usual, his eyes trailing over to the sandwiches she's placed on the table. Then, he raises a brow and says, "What? No curtsy for me?"

Juvia flushes and feeling slightly irritated, she makes an exaggerated bob. "Apologies, Gray-sama."

The corners of Gray's lips twitch but he doesn't say anything else. Instead, he sits down and takes a huge bite of his sandwich while Juvia scrambles around to pour him some coffee from the pot. Halfway through his meal, his eyes catch the half-opened _Economist_ magazine.

"Anything interesting today?" he conversationally asks as he takes a sip from his coffee.

"Oh, yes. One article talked about how China is backflipping on currency policy to stem the yuan's outflow as a way for Chinese companies to kind of circumvent foreign-exchange controls…"

She trails off when she realizes that housekeepers aren't supposed to be reading about articles on international monetary controls. They're supposed to be making breakfast and dusting ornaments. Cautiously, she sneaks a glance at Gray and tries to gauge the expression on his face but he's still looking at her with rapt attention.

"Go on," he urges. To her surprise, he doesn't sound the least bit patronizing.

"Er…" she struggles to finish her sentence, feeling a bit thrown. Should she pretend that she didn't know or should she? Would admitting that she at least has some working knowledge on economics give her masquerade away? But then again, why can't housekeepers read stuff like _The Economist_? What if she happens to be particularly intelligent (which she is) and just happens to end up at the wrong side of the bend because her father was a drunkard who ran off with her mother's hairdresser and her mother died of pneumonia—

"Good morning!" Erza cheerfully says, rounding into the room and effectively breaking Juvia's increasingly outrageous imagination spiel.

"Good morning, Erza-san," Juvia says, relieved that she doesn't have to answer his question. She bobs a curtsy before reaching over for the coffeepot to pour Erza a cupful.

"Oh! Good thing you're here. I wanted to discuss something with you yesterday but never really found the time to," Erza says.

"Here you go! The document you've been waiting for!" With a self-important air, she roots around her gym bag and pulls out a folder marked "Housekeeper's Contract." Juvia carefully takes it from her hands and opens it to find a title sheet on cream vellum paper.

 **CONTRACT OF AGREEMENT**

Between Rokusa Juvia and Furubasuta Gray, this twelfth of the day of December in the year two thousand and sixteen.

"Wow," Juvia says in surprise. "Did a lawyer draw this up?"

"I didn't need a lawyer," Erza chuckles knowingly. "Downloaded it from the internet. And obviously amended it slightly. All you need is a bit of common sense."

Inwardly, she bristles. Common sense? If contracts and matters of the law were as easy as that then lawyers wouldn't need to go through four grueling years of law school, now would they?

Grumbling to herself, she turns over the title sheet and quickly runs her eyes down the printed clauses. She has to bite her lip as she takes in phrases here and there, presumably Erza's amendments.

"Now, I know it looks intimidating!" Erza says, misinterpreting Juvia's silence. "But don't be intimidated by all these long words, okay? It's really quite simple when you get down to it. Lawyers just love to confuse people. Did you have a chance to look at the pay?"

Her eyes flicker to the figure quoted in bold under Weekly Salary. It's slightly less than what she charged per hour as a lawyer but definitely more than what an average housekeeper would have gotten.

"This seems extremely generous," she says after a pause. "Thank you very much, Erza-san."

"It's no trouble at all!" she says, beaming at Juvia jovially. "Is there anything else you don't understand? Just say!"

"Um…this bit," she says, pointing at Clause 13: Hours. "Does this mean Juvia gets the whole weekend off? _Every weekend_?"

"Unless we're entertaining," Erza nods. "In which case, you'll have two day offs in lieu…you'll see that in clause fourteen…I think I already told you this before in your interview…"

She's not listening. _Every weekend off_. She can't get her head around the idea. She doesn't think she's had a totally free weekend since she started law school.

"Didn't your previous employers give you weekends off?" Gray asks, noticing the expression on her face. He looks absolutely taken aback.

"Well, no," she says truthfully. "Not really."

"What? They sound like slave-drivers!" Erza says, shocked.

"Which is why Juvia is so grateful for Erza-san and Gray-sama," Juvia says, trying to inject as much humility as she can into her voice.

"Well! It is a good thing that you've come to us." She takes a sip from her coffee and gestures at the contract. "Once you've finished studying the agreement, you and Gray can both sign!"

"Juvia's pretty much read it—''

She halts as Erza raises a hand in reproof.

"Juvia, Juvia, Juvia," she says in avuncular tones, shaking her head. "I'm going to give you a little tip that will stand you in good stead in life. _Always_ read legal documents very carefully. Lawyers can be particularly wily and they never miss the chance to pull the wool over your eyes."

"Yes, Erza-san," Juvia says, desperately trying to keep a straight face. From the corner of her eyes, she can see Gray's nose twitching, almost as if he too, is finding it difficult to keep deadpan. "Juvia will try to remember that."

Erza and Gray lapse into a conversation about some guy named Jellal and his new car while Juvia pretends to carefully read through the contract, sometimes pausing to mentally correct a clause here and there. After about half an hour of "reading," Juvia quickly signs the dotted line and hands it over to Gray.

"Done reading?" he mildly asks her as he signs his name.

"Yes," Juvia distractedly replies. Now that breakfast is finished, she's trying her very best to calm down at the prospect of cleaning the house. It shouldn't be too hard but her first attempt didn't exactly go swimmingly.

"Juvia, I'm afraid I'm going to have to desert you for the day," Erza says, looking concerned. "I have a very important meeting that I need to deal with in Mutsu and won't be back until late in the evening. Will you be alright on your own?"

"Juvia will be fine!" she says, trying not to sound too joyful. Things will be so much easier without Erza breathing down her neck. "Don't you worry about me. _Really_. Juvia will just get on with things…"

"Now, I won't be here to answer any questions. But Gray will!" Erza brightly continues.

"Oh. Yay," Juvia weakly says. After all the drama that happened yesterday, she's still not quite sure how she's supposed to act around him. It doesn't help that the entire brassicas and cheese wheel incident probably made him think that she has a few screws loose.

"Gray knows all there is to know about this house," puts in Erza. "So if you can't find anything, need to know how a door unlocks or whatever, he's your man."

"Juvia will bear that in mind," she mumbles, forcing herself not to look at him. "Thanks."

"But Gray, I don't want you disturbing Juvia," adds Erza, whipping round to give him a severe look. "Obviously, she has her own established routine."

" _Obviously_ ," Gray says. As Erza turns away, he raises an eyebrow at her in amusement and Juvia can feel her color rise.

What's that supposed to mean? How does he know she doesn't have a routine? Just because she can't cook doesn't follow that she can't do _anything_.

"Now for lunch I was thinking you can make some foie gras and lamb and some hummus! With that delicious apricot glaze you were talking about. And perhaps some mousse for dessert. And whatever's left over can be for dinner," Erza says.

Juvia blankly stares at her.

"The seared foie gras in apricot glaze with minted hummus," Gray pipes up. "It was on your list. We shopped for the ingredients yesterday."

"Er…right! Yes! Absolutely!" Juvia says, trying to feign confidence. "Juvia will just…um…whip that up! No problem!"

"Great!" Erza peers at her in concern. "So you'll be okay? You've found all the cleaning stuff?"

"Um…" she looks around uncertainly.

"In the laundry room!" Erza stands up and disappears through the doorway for a moment, coming back with a giant plastic tub full of cleaning products.

"There you are!" she says, dumping everything on the table.

"Oh! And don't forget your Marigolds!" Erza merrily adds.

 _Her what?_

"Your gloves," Gray supplies. He stands up, takes a huge pink pair out of the tub and hands them to her with a little bow.

"Yes. Thank you," she says with dignity. She gives him an annoyed look. "Juvia knew that."

"Go on," Gray says. He jerks his head towards the gloves. "Put them on."

She has never worn a pair of rubber gloves in her life. Trying to keep an air of nonchalance about her, she slowly pulls them on to her hands.

Oh god. She has never felt anything quite so… _rubbery_. And revolting. Must she wear this all day?

"Alright! I just need to change and then I'll be off! Goodbye!" Erza says, striding out of the kitchen.

"Right! Goodbye Erza-san! Juvia will just…get on then."

She waits for Gray to leave but he leans against the table and looks at her quizzically. "Do you have any idea how to clean a house?"

Juvia glares back at him, feeling quite insulted. Does she look like someone who can't clean a house?

"Of course Juvia knows how to clean a house!" she waspishly says.

"Only I went for a morning run and ran into Belno and told her about you." His eyes twinkle, as though remembering the conversation. Juvia shrinks back apprehensively. What could he have told Belno? "Anyway. She's willing to help you with cooking. And I told her you probably need cleaning advice as well."

"Juvia does not need cleaning advice!" she retorts. "She's cleaned loads of houses before! In fact, she needs to get started."

"Don't mind me, then. I just need to finish breakfast," Gray mildly says.

She'll show him. She'll wipe that stupid look on his face. In a businesslike manner, she picks a can out of the tub and sprays it into the counter.

"So you've cleaned loads of house," Gray says, watching her.

"Yes! _Millions_ ," she defiantly says.

The spray has solidified into crystalline little gray droplets. She rubs them briskly with a cloth but they won't come off. She looks more closely at the can. DO NOT SPRAY ON GRANITE. Shit.

"Anyway," she says, hastily putting the cloth down and standing in front of the counter to hide the droplets. "You've already finished your breakfast."

"I want relax here for a bit," Gray casually says.

"But you're in my way."

She grabs a feather duster from the blue tub and starts brushing crumbs off the table. "So if you can just excuse me…."

"I'll leave you, then," Gray says, mouth twitching. He looks at the feather duster. "Don't you want to be using a dustpan for that?"

She looks uncertainly at the feather duster.

What's wrong with this one?

Anyway, what is he? The feather duster police?

"Juvia has her methods," she says, lifting her chin up. "Thank you."

"Ok," he says. He gives her a little salute. "See you this lunchtime. I look forward to your foie gras."

Juvia watches him leave the kitchen, feeling apprehensive all over again. She will not let him faze her, she resolutely decides. She just needs…a plan. Yes! A kind of timesheet to organize her day. Like at work.

She grabs a pen and pad paper from the phone and starts scribbling a list for the day. She has an image of herself moving smoothly from task to task, feather duster in one hand, brush in the other, bringing everything to order. Like Mary Poppins.

 **9:30-9:50** – Make Erza and Gray's beds and tidy up their rooms.

 **9:50-10:10** – Do laundry.

 **10:10-10:30** – Clean bathrooms.

 **10:30 -10:50** – Make lunch.

She gets to the end and reads it over with a surge of optimism.

Hah.

At this rate, she should easily be done by lunchtime.

* * *

 **9:36** \- Fuck. She cannot make this bed. Why won't the sheet lie flat?

 **9:42** \- And why do they make the mattresses so heavy?

 **9:54** -This is sheer torture. Her arms have never ached so much in her entire life. The blankets weigh a ton and the sheets won't go straight and she has no idea how to do the stupid corners. How do chambermaids do it? How do they have the strength to carry these blankets? Do they have some sort of secret workout regimen she doesn't know about?

 **10:16** \- At long last, she's made one bed. _Finally_. But she's already way behind. Never mind. Whatever. She'll just keep moving. Laundry next.

 **10:26** \- Oh god what the hell has she done?

She can hardly bare to look. It's a total disaster. Everything in the washing machine has gone pink. Every single thing.

What the hell happened?

With trembling fingers, she picks up a damp cashmere blouse. It was cream when she put it in. Now it's a sickly shade of cotton candy. There must be a solution. Frantically, she scrambles around the laundry room for a solution. There must be a remedy…She just needs to think…

 **10:38** \- Okay, she has an idea. It might not work but it's her best shot.

 **11:00** \- It doesn't work.

But at least she's replaced the blouses and shirts by shopping online in Uniqlo. It cost her more than five hundred yen and everything will be sent tomorrow through express delivery but it's alright. She just hopes to god Gray and Erza don't realize that their clothes have magically regenerated.

 **11:06** \- Oh crap. There's still ironing. It shouldn't be too hard and…fuck. Fuck. She's burned through Gray's linen shirt. What is she going to do about that?

 **11:12** \- Okay, so she has a solution. After looking at the local paper, she discovers that a girl in the village will collect everything, iron it all overnight at about a fifty yen a shirt and sew on Gray's button.

So far this job has cost her nearly a thousand yen. And its not even midday yet.

But it's okay.

At least laundry's out of the way.

 **11:42** – _Finally_ , she's gotten into some kind of rhythm. She's doing fine. She's doing well. She's got the vacuum on and she's cruising along nicely—Oh god. What was that? What just went up the vacuum? Why is it making that grinding noise?

Has she broken it?

 **11:48** \- How much does a vacuum cost?

 **12:24** \- Her knees are in total agony. She's been kneeling on hard tiles, cleaning the bath for what seems like hours. And it's just _one_ bathroom.

There are little ridges where the tiles have dug into her knees and she's boiling hot and the stupid cleaning chemicals are making her cough. All she wants to do is rest. But she can't stop for a moment, she's already way behind…

 **12:30** \- What is wrong with this bleach bottle? Which way is the nozzle supposed to point? She's turning it around in confusion, trying to make out where the arrows are pointing and squeezing it as hard as she can—

FUCK.

WHAT HAS IT DONE TO HER HAIR?

By one o'clock, she's in the living room, utterly knackered and trying to get over another crying spell. She's taken a bottle of wine from the refrigerator and after pouring some into the biggest wine glass she can find, she is now taking huge gulps. This is a disaster. She's only halfway down her list and she can't see herself making it to the end. She doesn't know how people clean houses. It's literally the hardest job. _Ever_.

Housekeepers should be paid more. They should be paid a millions.

She's not moving smoothly from task to task like Mary Poppins. She's darting about the house, moving from unfinished job to unfinished job like a headless chicken. And she feels so exhausted. She glances at the drawing room mirror and winces. She has never looked more horrendous in her life. Her hair is sticking out wildly and there's a huge grotesque streak of green-blond from where she's splashed the bleach. Her face is bright red and splotchy, her hands are pink and sore from all the scrubbing and her eyes bloodshot.

She's just thankful that Gray hasn't emerged from wherever it is he's hiding.

Shit.

 _Gray_.

She should be cooking him his foie gras lunch. She takes another big gulp straight from the bottle before wiping her tears away and scrambling back to the kitchen, trying to regain her cool.

This is fine.

She's fine.

If she says it often enough to herself, it must be true.

She starts pulling out piles of raw ingredients, trying her very best to still her trembling fingers.

She can do this. She can cook. She can cook this foie gras lunch. Even if everything in her life is in ruins, she can do this. She has a brain. She can work this out.

Without delay, she rips the plastic coverings off the lamb. That can go in the oven in a tray. Simple. And the chickpeas can go in there too and then she can mash them and make hummus.

She opens a cupboard and pulls out a whole load of gleaming baking trays and dishes. She selects one and scatters chickpeas onto it. Some bounce on to the floor, but she doesn't care anymore. All she wants to get through this task. She grabs some olive oil from the counter and drizzles it over the top.

She shoves the tray into the oven and turns all of the knobs. Then, she puts the lamb in another tray and shoves it into the oven as well.

Okay.

So far so good.

Now all she needs is to leaf through all of Erza's cookbooks and find a recipe for seared foie gras with an apricot glaze.

After about thirty minutes of skimming, she finally finds it.

She can do this. Of course she can. It's not quantum physics. It's just cooking.

Three hours later and she's still going at it. And so far, she hasn't made anything that can actually be eaten. She's discarded a collapsed chocolate soufflé, two pans of burnt carrots and a saucepan of rock hard apricots that look as if they taste like congealed sadness.

She can't work out where she did wrong. She hasn't got time to work out where she went wrong. She doesn't even bother to analyze anymore. Every time there's a disaster, she just dumps it and starts all over again, quickly thawing food together, changing tack, trying to cobble something together.

Meanwhile, Gray still hasn't come down to check on her. She has no idea where he is or what he's even doing but she's grateful for his absence. There was a point where he tried to enter the kitchen but she managed to head him off by shoving a bottle of sherry in his hands and telling him to relax in the drawing room.

Oh god.

In a few minutes, he's going to be expecting a gourmet meal.

A kind of frenzied hysteria overtakes her. She knows she can't do this but she can't give up either. She keeps thinking that a miracle will happen, that she will somehow pull it together—

Oh fuck.

The gravy's bubbling over.

She shoves the oven door shut, grabs a spoon and starts stirring it, wincing when she sees that it looks nothing more than revolting, lumpy brown water. Frantically, she starts searching in the cupboards for something to chuck in. Flour. Wait no. Maybe cornstarch? Well, whatever. The small pot of white powder will probably do. She grabs a handful and shakes vigorous amounts of it into the saucepan.

Okay.

What now?

Suddenly, she remembers the egg whites still whisking in their bowls. She grabs the recipe book, running her finger down the page. She changed the dessert course from soufflés to pavlovas after chancing upon the line: Meringues are so easy to make.

She peers into the next step of the recipe. _Form the stiff meringue mixture into a large circle on your baking parchment._

Stiff meringue mixture?

Her's is liquid.

It has to be right. It has to be. She followed the instructions. Maybe it's thicker than it looks. Maybe it will stiffen by some weird culinary law of physics once she pours it out. As she pours the mixture into the pan, a giant splotch lands on her skirt and she gives a cry of frustration. Why didn't it work? She followed the sodding recipe and everything. A pent-up rage starts rising inside of her: rage at herself, rage at her negligence over the whole Fearī Teiru business, rage at her defective egg whites and crappy cooking, at cookery books, at Cordon Bleu housekeepers and food…but most of all rage against whoever wrote that meringues were easy to make.

"They're not!" she hears herself yelling. "They're not easy to make!"

She hurls the book at the kitchen door just as it opens to reveal Gray. The book whacks against his head with a resounding thud and bounces on to the floor.

"What the hell?" he says. He grabs the book and surveys the mess she's made in the kitchen. "Is everything okay?"

"It's fine," she says. She doesn't even bother trying to hide how rattled she feels. "Everything's fine. You can just wait in the dining room and Juvia can er…get your meal together."

She makes a dismissive motion with her hand but he doesn't move.

"I was just checking up on that gourmet meal you said you were going to cook," he slowly says.

"Yes. That's right. She's just…in the most complex stage of um—oh god! The gravy!" she screeches, glancing at the stove.

She doesn't know what happened. Brown bubbles are expanding out of her gravy saucepan, all over the cooker and down the sides of the floor. It looks like the porringer in the story of the magic pot that wouldn't stop cooking porridge.

"Get it off heat for god's sake!" Gray says, scrambling towards the saucepan and grabbing one of the mittens. He snatches the saucepan away from the stove and moves it to the counter.

"What on earth is in this?"

"Nothing!" she hastily says. "Just the usual ingredients! You know…cornstarch…flour…"

Gray notices the little opened pot on the counter. He grabs it and takes a pinch between his fingers. "Baking soda? _You put baking soda in gravy?_ Is that what they teach you in—''

He abruptly stops and sniffs the air.

"Hang on. Is something burning?"

She watches helplessly as he opens the bottom oven, grabs a glove and hauls out a baking tray covered with what looks like tiny black bullets.

Oh no.

Her chickpeas.

"What are these supposed to be?" he incredulously asks. "Rabbit droppings?"

"They're chickpeas," she retorts. Her cheeks are flaming but she lifts her chin up and attempts to regain some semblance of dignity. "Juvia drizzled them in olive oil and put them in the oven so they could melt."

Gray stares at her. " _Melt_?"

"Soften," she hastily amends.

He puts the tray down and folds his arms. "Juvia. Do you know _anything_ about cooking?"

Before she can answer, an almighty bang explodes from the microwave.

"Oh my god!" Juvia shrieks in terror, jumping. "Oh god! What was that?"

Gray peers through the microwave's glass door.

"What the hell was in there?" he demands.

Her mind races frantically. What on earth did she put in the microwave? It's all a blur. Maybe it was the chocolate. No, she dumped that in the pan. Or maybe it was the first gravy mixture—

"The eggs!" she suddenly remembers. "Juvia was hard-boiling the eggs for the canapes!"

"In the microwave?" he expostulates.

"To save time!" she practically yells back. "Juvia was being efficient!"

Gray yanks the plug of the microwave from the wall sockets and turns around to face her, his face scrunched up with disbelief.

"You know jackshit about cooking!"

"Juvia does know how to cook!" she defensively retorts. "She knows how to cook loads of things! She…she's just rusty! It's because she hasn't cooked since—''

She abruptly stops. Great. Now she's walked right into it.

She can always try deflect the conversation to another topic but she's too emotionally spent to do so.

She takes a deep breath, trying to prepare herself for the inevitable awkward pause once she tells him that her parents are dead.

It can go so many ways. Silence. Hand over mouth. Gasp. Exclamation. Awkward change of subject. Morbid curiosity. Story about a bigger, more horrific car crash the distant relative of his friend was in. One girl she knew actually burst into tears and she had to fumble around for a tissue and watch her cry for a good thirty minutes.

"Since your parents died?" Gray says, speaking before she can.

She blinks at him, surprised. He looks a little uncomfortable but he hasn't looked away or cleared his throat or gasped or changed the subject. Instead, he looks at her square in the face. Despite his obvious discomfort, it doesn't feel awkward. It's… _weird_.

A long stretch of silence passes between them.

"I'm sorry if it was sensitive information I wasn't supposed to know," he finally says. "But I was worried that you were trying to exploit us."

Oh god. What does he think? That she's some kind of confidence trickster?

"So I asked Belno during my morning run about you and a bunch of other people who used to know you while you shopped for clothes," he continues.

"It's…it's fine," she says. She stares at him apprehensively. "What exactly…did they tell you?"

"Just that your parents died in a car crash when you were ten. And that you stopped cooking ever since. Belno told me you used to make the best bread but afterwards, you wouldn't even step foot in the kitchen," Gray says.

Juvia fiddles with the hem of her skirt, relieved that he doesn't know about the whole boating incident.

"Yes. Our restaurant closed after the car crash. Juvia's best friend's dad took her in but he owned an auto shop and we always just had take-out so…" she trails off. She is _not_ about to go into a conversation about how cooking and baking was too painful because it made her parents' deaths all too real. Least of all with him.

"Did they die both at once?" he asks, in a more gentle voice.

"My dad straightaway. Dead upon arrival. My mom the day after." She flashes him a brittle smile. "Never got to say goodbye to her either though. She was already in a coma by the time Juvia got to the hospital. She suffered lots of internal bleeding."

She's learned early on that smiling is really the only way to get through these conversations.

"I'm very, very sorry."

"No need to be!" She says in her standard, upbeat voice. Like clockwork, she begins to go through the pre-prepared speech she's memorized since she was ten. "It all worked out. Juvia moved in with Metallicana and she got the big brother she never had but always wanted. Metallicana and Gajeel-kun looked after her really well and made her feel as if she was really part of their family. So it's all good. All good."

Even though she's taking great care not to look at him, she can still feel his eyes on her. She looks one way and then another, trying her absolute hardest to dodge them.

"That explains a lot," Gray says at last.

She can't bear his sympathy. She can't bear _anyone's_ sympathy.

"No it doesn't!" she tightly says. " _It does not_. It happened years ago and it's over and Juvia is a grown-up and she's dealt with it. So you're wrong. It doesn't explain anything."

Gray looks at her from the corner of his eyes, his face more serious than usual.

"I meant it explains why you're absolutely crap at cooking."

"Oh."

"Or why you're not a real housekeeper."

Juvia stiffens. Oh god. He knows. She already had a suspicion that he did but somehow, it's so much more alarming now that he's said it out loud. She suddenly feels a tiny swoop of fear. Is he going to call the cops on her? Is he going to chase her out of the house with a broom?

"How did you—''

"I knew the moment Erza told me she hired someone who could cook 'Eiffels'' Gray says, the corners of his lips twitching.

"Look…please." She rubs a sweaty hand against her face. "Juvia is not trying to rip anyone off. Okay, she can't cook. And she's not a real housekeeper. But she ended up here because of a…misunderstanding."

"What kind of misunderstanding?"

She sinks down on to a chair and buries her face against her hands. She's so _exhausted_. Every single muscle in her body is singing with pain, including muscles she didn't even know she had. She feels as if she's run a marathon and she hasn't even polished the woodwork or beaten the mats yet.

"Juvia was running away from…something. She needed a place to stay for the night. She stopped here for some water and directions to a hotel and Erza-san assumed that Juvia was a housekeeper. And yesterday she felt terrible because Erza-san was so nice so Juvia thought she'd do the job for the day. As a kind of thank you. But she's not planning to stay forever. And she won't take any money from you, if that's what you were worried about."

"What were you running from?"

She feels a painful little wrench inside. She cannot face telling the whole dreadful story.

"It was a…situation. At work." She looks down. "Juvia made a terrible, _terrible_ mistake."

"Come on. It can't have been that bad," Gray gently says.

"Think fifty million yen," Juvia miserably says. "So yes. It was that bad."

Gray falters but to his credit, he quickly manages to smooth his expression over.

"Well, at least you're out of it. If it was a bad situation, there's no point in staying and no point in going back."

"You're right. Yes. Juvia just has to decide what to do with her life." She morosely looks at her saucepan of soiled gravy. "Juvia knows it's really stupid but she thought she'd stay here until…she works herself out."

"It's not stupid," Gray firmly tells her in calm tones.

She stares at him in astonishment. "You really think so?"

He doesn't look as if he's judging her. He's not pitying her either, which she really appreciates.

He just looks like he always does; serious and implacable with brows drawn together.

"A—A friend once told me that when you've gone through a—a _thing_ , it's important for you to remember that you have to be extra gentle towards yourself. You have to nurse yourself. In the same way an athlete who's broken an ankle wouldn't force himself to run on that ankle. They give themselves time to heal. They don't think of themselves as a failed athlete. They think: 'something isn't working so I'll take care of myself until it does."

Juvia looks up at him. His brows are furrowed and there's a look in his eyes that she doesn't completely understand.

"Pushing yourself too hard and getting frustrated when you don't feel better is just like trying to run on a broken ankle and getting frustrated when it doesn't heal," he continues.

"That sounds like something a therapist would say," Juvia observes. But already, she can feel the beginnings of a smile work its way round her lips.

Gray gives her a wry look.

"I keep forgetting you're not a real housekeeper who's actually read the brief," he mutters under his breath. Then, in a louder voice, he adds, "You're not the only one who flipped out."

"Come on. It can't have been that bad," she says, jokingly ribbing him with her elbow.

"Well apparently, it was bad enough for my siblings to send me here in Oma for a 'retreat'," Gray says. She waits for him to tell her more but he doesn't say anything else. Maybe he doesn't want her to know what he did. Maybe he's actually relieved that she's not a real housekeeper and that she hasn't read the brief and doesn't know. She understands that.

"So…you're okay with Juvia staying?"

"Of course. You know, not to brag or anything, but me and Erza are really good employers," he says with a little shrug. "You could do worse."

She gestures at her total wreck of a meal. "But…but she can't cook. Or clean."

"You can learn. I've already told Belno about you. She's willing to teach you."

She feels a sudden burn of humiliation and looks away. She doesn't want to be useless. She doesn't want to need lessons. That's not who she is. She wants to be able to do this on her own, without asking assistance from her own.

But…the truth is, she needs help. Apart from anything else, if she keeps going on like this, she's going to end up bankrupt in two weeks.

"That would be great. Thanks," she slowly says.

"Sure," he shrugs. Then he adds, "Plus, it would be nice having someone around who can make great strawberry cake."

This time, she can't help but smile at the slightly questioning look on his face. "Caterers."

"Ah. I wondered. And the boeuf bourguignon?"

"Take-away. Juvia bought it when you left her alone to shop for her clothes," she says.

"That was pretty clever of you. And the vegetables?"

"Oh come on! Juvia can do _some_ things you know."

"Guess you can." He shakes his head. "You know, you're very lucky Erza's not here today."

"Yeah, Juvia supposes she is. Well." She gets up, still wobbly with fatigue. "Juvia guesses that she should try to at least cobble something together for your lunch."

"You should have a break," Gray firmly says. "You've been at it the whole day, I've seen you. Did you have any lunch?"

Juvia shakes her head. "No time. Housekeeping is a lot harder than Juvia thought. A lot harder."

"Uh-huh." He peers at her head. "What happened to your head?"

"Bleach," she says, shortly. "It was from cleaning the toilets."

He gives a muffled snort of laughter. At least she thinks it was laughter. She can't really be too sure with him. He's always so frowny and serious that she's secretly taken to calling him Mr. Frowny in her head.

"You're a hard worker," he says. "I'll give you that. It'll get easier."

"No, it won't. Juvia's hopeless."

"You're not," Gray says. He opens the refrigerator and takes out a can of coke. "Here. Have this. You can't work on no fuel."

"Thanks," Juvia gratefully says.

Gray helps her clean up the mess she's made in the kitchen and after ordering some Chinese take-away and a fancy gourmet meal off the internet for dinner (that he's insisted on paying), the two of them go through the house, trying to contain all the damage that Juvia's done. They're just in the middle of sorting through her bad vacuuming job when Gray suddenly speaks up, "You know, my friend lost his mother when…we were at college. I spent lots of nights talking with him. Lots of nights."

He pauses. "You don't just get over it. And it doesn't make any difference that you've supposedly grown up. Or that it happened when you were a grown-up. It never goes away."

Juvia pauses, stunned. He wasn't supposed to come back to the subject. They'd move on. He was suppose to gallop off to something else with relief.

"Well, Juvia did get over it," she brightly says. "She's dealt with it and she's fine and she's a well-adjusted adult. So…there."

Gray nods as though her words don't surprise him.

"Yes, that's what he always used to say too. To other people. I know. You have to. But it's hard to keep the façade up," he says, looking at her full on the face.

Juvia stares at him, stubbornly trying to keep her smile plastered on her face. She _will_ keep smiling. She will not meet his eyes.

But for some reason, she can't help it. She does.

And her eyes are suddenly hot. Shit. Shit. This hasn't happened for years. _Years_.

"Don't look at Juvia like that," she fiercely says.

"Like what?" Gray sounds alarmed.

"Like you understand." She thickly swallows. "Stop it. Just stop."

She takes a deep breath and turns away from him. God, she's such an idiot. She needs to get a grip. She hasn't been taken this off-guard about her parents' deaths since…she can't even remember when.

"I'm sorry," Gray haltingly says. "I didn't mean to—''

"No, it's fine! It's totally fine!" she says, forcing herself to sound cheerful again.

She purposely turns away from him and spends the rest of the day avoiding his gaze.

She really can't stand it when people go off on their own narration about a more horrific car crash or people who make the situation worse by awkwardly trying to comfort her. But people who pretend as if they get it, as if they understand, are the worst.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Happy New Year everyone! Hope you are enjoying the holidays. This chapter goes out to Kate or muffin-dragon227 who told me something similar to Gray's athlete conversation with Juvia. That conversation is also very much based on this post I saw on tumblr made by **somecompany**.

As always, I'd just like to answer some guest reviews:

 **Katherine:** Wow, that's high praise indeed! It was a great and light read so I would recommend you finish the book xD But I agree, if I had to critique it, it's that it needed to be tightened a bit more. Thank you for reviewing!

 **Guest:** Thank you very much! I'm glad you found the scenes funny. Although yes, I will admit Erza is a bit OOC in this fic and I've taken some liberties with her character for the sake of the plot.

Thank you again! Until next time.


	5. Chapter 5

**Five**

* * *

She wakes up the next morning, heart pounding, her mind racing with everything she has to do. Her alarm didn't ring and she's late for work, she's sure of it. She has never been a morning person and it always takes her at least three hours to rouse herself from sleep—

Abruptly, she stops, like a car screeching to a halt. For a moment she can't move. Then, she sinks back into the bed, overcome with the most extraordinary feeling.

It's Saturday!

Which means she has the day off.

She has absolutely nothing to do.

No contracts, no meetings, no e-mails. _Nothing._

She tries to remember the last time she had nothing to do. She can't even summon a memory up. The best she can do was when she was in high school and school got cancelled because of a thunderstorm so she and Gajeel spent the whole day messing around with one of the cars Metallicana was fixing up.

She gets out of bed and stares at the early morning translucent blue sky, trying to get her head around her situation. It's her day off. No one has any hold over her. No one can call her up and demand her presence. She has her own time.

She's free.

Like Dobby. She suddenly has an image of herself in a sackcloth, clutching a manky sock and jumping up and down as she yells, "Juvia is free! She's free!"

As she stands there at the window and continues to imagine herself as a freed house elf, something odd starts bubbling up from inside. Light and giddy like a helium balloon. _She's free._ A smile of exhilaration tugs at the corners of her lips. For the first time in a long time, she can do whatever she wants.

She checks the time and sees that it's only 7:15 a.m. She can see the whole day stretching out before her like a fresh sheet of paper. What should she do? Where should she even start?

She's already sketching out a timetable of the day in her head. No. She shouldn't even be making one. Forget timetables. Forget hurrying. She's going to measure her time today in _hours_. An hour for wallowing in the bath and getting dressed. An hour for lingering over breakfast. An hour for reading the paper from cover to cover. She's going to have the laziest, most indolent, most enjoyable morning she's ever had in her adult life.

She fires off another text to Gajeel assuring him (for the millionth time) that she's okay before grabbing a towel and heading to the bathroom. As she pads across the tiled floors, she can feel her muscles twinging with pain. Honestly, she doesn't know how housekeepers do it. She's never been more exhausted in her whole life. They really should market housekeeping as a workout.

She runs a deep, warm bath and sloshes in some of the bath oil on the counter before stepping into the scented water and lying back happily.

Ah.

This is the life.

She could stay here for the whole day.

She closes her eyes, letting the water lap her shoulders and time wafts past in great swathes. She even falls asleep for a while.

At last, she opens her eyes, reaches for her towel and steps out. As she is drying herself, she checks her watch, just out of curiosity.

7:30 a.m.

She goggles at her watch in surprise.

What?

She had only been in the bath for fifteen minutes?

How can she have only been there for fifteen minutes?

She stands there, dripping with indecision, wondering for a moment if she should go back in and do her bath all over again.

But no, that would be too weird.

Well.

Never mind. It doesn't matter. So she had her bath too quickly. She'll just make sure to take her time with breakfast.

She scrambles to her room, pausing halfway through when she realizes that she shouldn't even be rushing in the first place. She can walk. There's no hurry.

In more measured steps, she returns to her room and roots around for something to wear. When Gray left her alone to shop for her clothes, she had been so distracted with the impending result of the board's meeting that she ended up just buying everything the salesladies thought "suited her" and somehow ended up with not a single item in black.

Cautiously, she slips into a pretty floral sundress and a pair of strappy sandals and looks at herself. She hasn't worn anything quite as girly or pink in a really, really long time. Her entire closet at home is filled with black suits and the occasional dark blue or maroon blouse and she's also gotten into the habit of wearing black during weekends (because she works then, anyway). It just makes life easy.

But to her amazement, she doesn't look bad! In fact, she actually looks kind of…cute. Except of course for the streak in her hair. She frowns and her hand hovers over her forehead indecisively. Should she put her hair up in a chignon like she usually does or keep it down so that she could hide the streak better? She doesn't really like to wear her hair down because it's distracting but…

After several minutes of internal debating, she decides to keep it down. As long as she kind of parts her hair to the side, then the streak can be hidden.

Oh, who is she kidding.

The streak of bleach in her hair is as obvious as ever.

She pushes her hair forward and backward a few times but she can't hide it. Maybe she could walk along with her hand carelessly positioned at her head, as if she was thinking hard. She attempts a few, casual pensive poses in the mirror.

God, she looks stupid.

Like, she has a headache.

Well, never mind.

She should get on. She's probably taken up so much time already.

7:35.

She blinks once.

Seriously? That only took five minutes?

She frowns at herself in the mirror. She never realized how slowly time moved.

Still feeling a bit put-off, she makes her way to the kitchen. It's as silent and shiny as ever but after her whole talk with Gray, it doesn't feel as intimidating. She knows her way around the kettle now and the toaster, if nothing else. She'll have toast for breakfast with maybe some jam or ginger marmalade and a nice cup of tea. And she'll read the paper from cover to cover. That'll take her until eleven o'clock and then she can worry about what to do…

She wonders how the Minamoto-Ayala deal is going.

The thought pops into her mind without warning. She can't keep her mind from drifting to her last amendments and edits scribbled on the draft agreement. And she was supposed to meet up with Ayala's lawyers and representatives too to smoothen things out. She always dreaded going to those meetings. The communication barrier was daunting and her English still needed a lot of work (she spoke Mandarin better). And she still hasn't turned in Aria's due diligence report.

All her work.

Left half done.

Her grip on her coffee cup tightens as she remembers all the projects she's left behind. Who's taken on all her unfinished deals? Gajeel? But no, he has a lot on his plate already and between the two of them, he's always been better at saying no and managing his time so he doesn't get overwhelmed with work. Chēni Rogue maybe? He's a year or two younger than her and he absolutely _idolizes_ Gajeel. He's new and just got off being a trainee but he's pretty sharp. Plus, she knows for a fact that he's studying English as well. With a wince, she imagines him taking the files off her desk, flipping through all her work, introducing himself to the Ayala people and arranging for trips to the Philippines. He could be there right now. Or maybe in Penang since she was supposed to help broker a deal between Mitsubishi and some Malaysian company around this time…

Stop.

Just stop.

She mustn't think about it. It has nothing to do with her anymore. She should relax and enjoy her free time like any normal person.

Forcing the images out of her mind, she grabs a copy of _The Economist_ and finishes reading through the rest of the articles. She sits by the window, crunching toast, sipping tea and leafing through the magazine in a leisurely way. At last, after devouring three slices, two cups and every single page of the magazine, she stretches her arms in a big yawn and glances at the clock.

7:56 a.m.

Unbelievable.

What the hell is wrong with her?

Breakfast was supposed to take hours. She was supposed to be sitting there the whole morning. Not get everything finished in under twenty minutes.

Okay…never mind. She'll get the hang of it soon enough.

Maybe Erza and Gray would like breakfast. She knows she's technically not supposed to be working today but well, surely they'll appreciate her bringing them food?

In fact, she would even go above and beyond today by treating them to breakfast in bed!

Quickly, she boils the kettle and makes a teapot full. Then she puts on a tray of cups and saucers and after a moment of thought, a few slices of toast and some biscuits. She heads upstairs, venturing along the silent corridor and stops at Gray's room first.

She hesitates.

Yesterday, things between them kind of became…awkward.

They've gone back to talking by the time Erza arrived but still, she was kind of snippy with him when he only wanted to help.

No, come on.

She shouldn't be so feeble.

With renewed resolve, she knocks on the door. When nobody answers after her third try, she decides that Gray is either sleeping in or he's gone off for one of his morning runs.

Carefully, she ambles towards Erza's room and knocks on the door.

There's no answer.

Hesitantly, she gives another tap.

"Jellal! Stop that!" Erza's raised voice filters out of the room.

Jellal?

That name sounds vaguely familiar.

She knocks again. Nobody answers. Faintly, she can hear thudding noises from behind the door.

Oh god. Why can't they hear her?

She's suddenly hot all over. The tray is so heavy and she can't stand outside their room with a cup of tea all morning now, can she? Maybe she should just retreat.

She's just about to turn around and creep away when Erza calls out, "Come in!"

Somehow she manages to turn the doorknob while balancing the tray against the door. She pushes the door open and walks into the room.

Erza looks up from the canopied mahogany bed, where she's sprawled on a pile of lace pillows alone. She's wearing a silky, lace nightie and her hair is disheveled.

"Oh, Juvia it's you! Good morning!" Erza brightly says.

She has an immediate, horrible feeling that she's done the wrong thing. Juvia dare not remove her gaze from Erza's, but her peripheral vision starts to register a few details in the room. There's a book called _Sensual Enjoyment_ on the floor. And a bottle of musk-scented massage oil. And—

A well-worn copy of _The Joys of Sex_. Right by the bed. Opened at Turkish Style.

Somehow, she manages not to drop the tray on the floor.

Oh god. This is _so_ embarrassing.

She swallows, trying to keep her composure, desperately pretending as if she hasn't seen anything.

"Juvia…brought you a cup of tea," she says, voice cracking with nerves. "She thought…you might like one."

She must not look at _The Joys of Sex_. She has to keep her eyes _up_.

"How lovely! And you've made one for Jellal too! You absolute treasure!" she says, gesturing at the teacup meant for Gray. "Go on! Put it down."

She waves an arm vaguely at the bedside table.

Juvia bites her bottom lip. The bedside table is so far off from the bedroom door.

She's just about to move towards it when a tall, blue-haired man with a strange tattoo on his face emerges from the bathroom door. Thankfully, he's fully clothed; he's wearing a Batman shirt and a pair of oversized boxers. Still, there's really no mistaking what he and Erza had been doing.

Jellal looks a little startled to see her but otherwise he seems unperturbed.

"Juvia is so…sorry," she stammers, steadily backing away. "She didn't realize…"

"Don't be silly! Come in!" Erza gaily says. She seems completely reconciled with the fact that Juvia's in her bedroom. Then, in a slightly defensive voice, she says, "We're _not_ prudish you know…"

Juvia kind of wishes they were.

"Er…okay…"

"I'm afraid you haven't met Jellal yet, have you? Juvia, this is my boyfriend Ferunandesu Jellal. He is the program director for a SEED, a non-government organization," Erza proudly says. "He works with inner city youth. He tries to keep them in track, makes sure they stay there. They're very bright kids so he just makes sure that they don't get sidetracked…"

"Nice to meet you Juvia," Jellal pleasantly says, giving a rather deep bow.

Juvia flashes him what she hopes is a genial smile. Cautiously, she edges further towards the bed, stepping over a mauve lace bra. She finds a place for the tray on Erza's bedside table by pushing aside a photo of her and Jellal in the beach, both holding up glasses of fruity cocktails.

She pours out tea as quickly as she can and hands a cup to each of them. She cannot look either of them in the eye. In what other job do you see your boss naked?

Only one other occupation springs immediately to her mind. Which isn't encouraging.

"Well…Juvia will go now," she mumbles, head down.

"Don't rush off!" Erza says, sipping her tea with relish. "Now that you're here, I wanted to have a little chat. See where we are with things."

"Er…right." Her nightie is gaping and Juvia can see the edge of her nipple. Juvia hastily looks away and to her horror, finds herself catching the eye of the bearded guy in _The Joys of Sex_ as he contorts himself.

She can feel cheeks flaming with embarrassment. This is so surreal. She's standing in her boss's room, with two people who are for all intents and purposes, strangers to her, being practically shown how they have sex. And they don't even seem remotely bothered…

And then it comes to her. Of course. _She's help_. She doesn't count.

"So, is everything all right Juvia?" Erza says, putting her teacup down. "You've got your routine sorted? Gray wasn't a bother to you yesterday, was he?"

"No, he wasn't. He was absolutely helpful. And yes…Juvia definitely has everything under control…" She struggles to look away from Erza's large chest. "She's pretty much on top of everything…Aah—what Juvia meant was she's getting to grips with it all…"

Aargh.

What the hell is she saying?

"Wonderful! Any plans for your day off?" Erza continues.

"Oh you know…she's planning to do…er…stuff. Here and there," she responds, waving a dismissive hand.

"Okay! Have fun!" Erza brightly says as Juvia starts backing away the door.

"Thank you!" Juvia says, matching her chirpy tone. She bobs a curtsy, steps over the bra again and exits the room as quickly as she can.

What a disaster.

And she thought being a lawyer was stressful.

* * *

After her embarrassing run-in with Erza and Jellal, Juvia steers clear from the second floor, not wanting to come across into any more unwanted guests. She has no idea if Gray has a girlfriend or whatever but she most certainly does not want to risk a repeat of her experience with Erza.

She spends a few minutes pacing around the kitchen wondering what to do before coming up with the idea of going to Belno's place. Belno did tell her to drop by any time after all. Maybe she can even go sightseeing.

An hour and a half later, she's back at the house, sorely disappointed. Belno wasn't at home (and Juvia only just now remembers that it's because she and her family are at Mutsu) and Juvia had to deal with her creepy, hipster grandson who spouted innuendos every three seconds. She tried going around town but Oma is pretty small and she's a naturally fast walker so she managed to circle the entire place quickly.

This is insane.

There must be something she can do.

Abruptly, she realizes that she's tapping the table with her fingernails. She stops herself and surveys her hands for a moment. What is wrong with her? She's having her first true day off in years. She should be relaxed. There is surely something she can do.

What do people do on their days off? Her mind scrolls through a series of images from TV. She can make another cup of tea and curl up with a book somewhere but she's already had two and the only books she's seen in the house are the ones in Erza and Gray's room. She'd ask them except that she doesn't want to run into any Turkish Style incidents again. She could always read _The Economist_ and the paper again but there's really no point in re-reading things she already knows.

Her gaze drifts towards the garden where a hummingbird is perched on a stone pillar, looking around with bright eyes. Maybe she'll go outside. Enjoy the wildlife and the early morning dew. Take off her shoes, just feeling the earth and being one with nature. Fantastic.

Except that the trouble with early morning dew is it gets all over your feet. And there are worms crawling about in the ground. As she picks her way over the damp grass, she's already wishing that she hadn't taken her sandals off. Or that she waited a little later for her stroll.

The garden is a lot bigger than she appreciated. She walks down the lawn towards an ornamental hedge where the land seems to finish, only to realize that there's a whole section beyond it, with an orchard at the end and some sort of walled garden to the left.

It's a stunning garden. She doesn't know squat about plants but even she can see that. The flowers are vivid without being garish and every wall is covered with some beautiful creeper or vine. As she walks towards the orchard, she can see little golden pears hanging from the branches of trees and vibrant birds fluttering about in the cherry blossom trees. She walks past the trees towards a huge, square, brown patch of earth with vegetation growing in serried rows. These must be vegetables. She prods one of them cautiously with her foot. It could be a cabbage or a lettuce. Or the leaves of something growing underground.

To be honest, it could be an alien. She has no idea.

She sits down on a mossy wooden bench and looks at a nearby bush covered in white flowers. Mm. Pretty.

Now what?

What do people do in their gardens?

She should have something to read. Or someone to call. Her fingers are itching to move. She looks at her watch. Only ten sixteen. Oh, God. Come on, she can't give up yet. She'll just sit here for a bit and enjoy the peace. She leans back and watches a little speckled bird pecking the ground nearby for a while. Then, she looks at her watch again: ten-seventeen.

She can't do this. She can't do nothing all day. It's going to drive her crazy.

No, come on. This can't be it. There must be something fun she can do.

Maybe she should feel up those flowers. She did after all come here to be one with nature. Hesitantly, she walks over to a bush and starts…petting one of the petals. Huh. She doesn't feel like she's communing with nature yet. Maybe she should smell the flowers?

She carefully leans forward towards the flower and takes a great sniff, staggering backwards into a sneezing fit when tiny prickles of pollen start escaping from it.

She whirls around, hand over her nose, her eyes still watery. She needs a tissue or something. She will not ruin her new dress by using it to wipe her nose—

She abruptly stops.

Gray is standing a few feet away from her, gloves on and a pair of shears in one hand. It's a bit difficult to read the expression on his face because the baseball cap he's wearing is shading his eyes but she can tell that he's taken a great interest in her hair. Automatically, her hand flies to the streak and she begins to push it this way and that in an effort to hide it.

"What?" she defiantly says. "What are you looking it at?"

"Your hair," he shrugs.

"What about it? You know, Juvia may have gotten her streak by accidentally spraying her hair with bleach but she'll have you know that she actually likes it and she's thinking about keeping it—''

"I wasn't talking about your streak," he interrupts. "I actually think it looks nice. Like a badger."

"A badger!?" she says, affronted. She does not look like a badger.

"Badgers are beautiful creatures," he says. For some reason, that makes her flush. Did he just…did he just say she was beautiful?

Gray stares at her carefully, suddenly looking awkward. He clears his throat several times before speaking, "I mean…I'd rather look like a badger than a stoat."

Hang on. Since when did her choice become between a badger and a stoat? How did they get to this subject anyway?

"So," she says after a moment of awkward staring. "What did you want to say about Juvia's hair?"

"Nothing." This time, it was his turn to flush. "It's just that…it's the first time I've seen your hair down. That's all."

Juvia blankly stares at him. "What?"

"You had it up in a bun when we first met. And the second day too," he says.

Oh, right. Even as a housekeeper, she kept her hair up in a practical bun.

"You look…nice with your hair down," he stiffly says.

"Oh er…right. Well," she says, feeling slightly wrong-footed. She's not quite sure how to respond. It's not everyday your boss compliments you. And Gray did it twice."Thanks."

"Anyway, what are you doing here?" he asks before she can say anything else.

Juvia straightens up and lifts her chin, trying to look nonchalant despite the fact that her eyes are still watery and her nose is itching for a good sneeze.

"Juvia was smelling the flowers."

His eyes trail over towards her bare feet. "And why are you barefoot?"

Her cheeks flame with embarrassment.

"She wanted to experience the morning dew," she says with as much dignity as she can muster.

"And that required you to take your shoes off?" he says, raising a brow.

"Juvia…wanted to be one with nature," she says. The corners of Gray's lips start twitching again.

"Anyway, what are _you_ doing here?" she hastily says.

"Just finished straightening out that doorknob Erza asked me to fix. Thought I'd prune the vegetable patch next. I've been learning to do some gardening in my spare time," he says, gesturing at the square, brown patch.

"Oh, so that's why you know so much about brassicas."

"Yes. Although I didn't really know about the amazing, new variety of push-up brassicas so maybe I'm not as good of a gardener as I thought," he says, giving her a bemused look.

She decides to ignore that.

"So...you did all these?" Juvia asks in amazement.

"Of course not! I'm not Alan Titchmarsh. Our gardener did everything," Gray says, shaking his head. "I just help maintain it. It's a hobby I got into. Plus, it keeps me out of Erza and Jellal's way in the weekend mornings. They can be particularly… _loud_."

At the mention of Erza and Jellal, Juvia immediately turns into a rather dark shade of puce.

"Ah. I see you've already met Erza's fiancee."

"Juvia served him tea," she weakly says.

Gray's face looks as implacable as always. "Turkish style?"

"Oh, stop it!" Juvia crossly says, not wanting to remember her harrowing experience.

"Come on," Gray urges. "It can't have been as bad as what I went through. _Still_ go through. My bedroom's next to hers."

"Well, Juvia _saw_ them!" she says. She gives a terrified shudder. "She is never stepping foot in Erza-san's bedroom ever again."

"Now, that wouldn't be a very housekeeperly thing to do, would it?" Gray tells her as he moves towards the vegetable patch.

Juvia glares at him before reluctantly moving away to give him room. For a moment, she hesitates, torn between leaving him alone and continuing the conversation.

"So…how long have you been in Oma?" she finally says.

Gray shrugs. "For about a year or so."

"And how do you like it so far?"

"Haven't seen much of it."

"Why not? There are lots of things to see in Oma!" She can't help her natural enthusiasm from pouring out. "You should go to the Oma Cape Lighthouse and then, maybe take a boat to Hakodate. Or you can go to Hugenin Temple…"

"Maybe," he shrugs.

" _Maybe?_ Aren't you the least bit interested?"

"Don't really feel up to it," he says.

That is the lamest thing she's ever heard. How can you move to a town and not bother to get to know it?

Okay fine.

She's like that as well with the cities she's been to. But she's allowed a pass because she only gets two or three days at most. Just enough time to work deals out. As someone from Oma, she's taking this quite personally.

She knows it's a small town but it has a lot to offer.

"How about outside the town then? Mutsu? Hirakawa?"

Gray gives a little shake of his head.

Okay, this not-knowing-Aomori is really starting to annoy her.

"Juvia can't believe it! Belno was right! You do need to go out more often." She shakes her head. "Is there any area you do know?"

"I know the harbor," Gray shrugs. "I know the way to the open market. I know my way to the grocery."

"But that's it?"

"That's all I really need to know."

She tries to ignore how exceedingly familiar this conversation sounds like.

It's one she's had with Gajeel and others during her out of town trips. She also always just bothered with figuring out where the supermarket was whenever she was sent abroad. She suddenly feels dismayed. Is she really this narrow-minded?

"Still," she says, trying to shake off her sudden discomfort. "You should go sightseeing. It's criminal that you haven't. Oma is a lovely town."

"All right," Gray says, after a while. "Show me around, then."

"W-What?" Juvia says, flummoxed.

"You're on your day-off, aren't you?"

"Well, yes but—''

"We can't go out of town today because Erza has already told me she and Jellal plan to use the car. Jellal has a new car but he took the train coming here. So maybe we can see the lighthouse and Hakodate," he says, standing up and brushing off the dirt from his pants. "And then tomorrow, we can take the car to the city."

"But…Juvia means…well…" she stammers. What she really wanted to ask if it would be appropriate that the two of them go around town sightseeing together. Because it seems a little too much like a…date. And obviously, she knows he's just being nice and he's not trying to come on to her but still. She's the _help_. And he's an incredibly important, gazillionaire architect.

"It's just that…Juvia is really busy—''

"With what?" He gives her an amused look. "With being one with nature?"

"She just wanted to appreciate the morning dew!" she hotly says.

"Alright then," he calmly says, turning his attention back to the vegetable patch. "I won't keep you then. If you want to smell some flowers I suggest the honeysuckle by the wall."

She flushes in embarrassment and tries to think of a witty retort. Instead of saying something clever, however, she ends up blurting out, "Juvia hasn't said no, yet you know."

Gray briefly looks up at her. "So…are we going or not?"

She blinks at him, not saying anything for several moments. She should say no. That's the right thing to say. It would cause all sorts of talk if word gets out that Gray has been going off around town with his maid.

But…

She really doesn't have anything to do now, does she?

"Yeah sure," she says, voice unnaturally high. "Let's go."

* * *

She suggests to Gray that they start their tour with the lighthouse at Bentenjima before moving on to Hakodate at the other side. Hugenin Temple is lovely of course but it can get a little boring in there and she wants her very first day off to be exciting. After self-consciously pushing her hair around several times, Gray exasperatedly drags her to a stand selling a few odds and ends and buys her a wide-brimmed sun hat.

"You don't think it looks…a little too much, do you?" she worriedly asks.

"You look fine," Gray patiently re-assures her for the millionth time as they turn round a corner towards the ferry harbor. They've managed to make it here at record time. Gray is a surprisingly fast walker. Despite having lived in Oma for nearly a year, he still has that distinct, super fast, Tokyo-businessman's walk.

"Oh! Juvia will buy the tickets!" she hurriedly says, accidentally elbowing him in her scramble to get her wallet.

"No, don't be silly—''

"This is on me," Juvia firmly tells him as she blocks him from the ticket stand's window. "It was Juvia's idea so it's only fair that she buys the ticket. Plus, you bought her this hat."

"Okay. Thanks," Gray says. They squeeze past the crowds of people and after buying some orange juice and arguing a bit over which seats they should take, the two of them decide to go to the upper deck and look at the view from the railings.

"The view is amazing!" Juvia says, once the ferry starts chugging towards Bentenjima. The ocean breeze is absolutely delicious and the water is beautiful underneath the bright morning sun. She gives a big, lazy stretch before leaning against the railings peacefully. "Juvia wishes she could live here forever!"

"You do live here," he reminds her in an amused voice.

"Oh. Right."

She feels a tweak of surprise.

She tries to process this new thought, tries to imagine living a life away from Tokyo. Away from the hustle and bustle of the train stations and the busy, almost mechanical atmosphere of her office. Her old life feels so distant. When she thinks back to herself last week, it's as if she's seeing herself through tracing paper. Everything she once prized has been destroyed. She's still feeling sore and bruised. But at the same time…her rib cage expands widely as she breathes in the country air and she suddenly feels a wave of optimism. She's out here in the sunshine, watching the waves lap against the ferry and breathing in the ocean breeze.

She could get used to this.

"For how long did you live here?" he asks her.

"Until high school. Then me and Gajeel-kun went to Tokyo for college," she says, careful not to mention her major. "Juvia is very grateful that Metallicana took her in. It couldn't have been easy supporting another kid."

"Metallicana. That's some name," Gray thoughtfully says.

"It's not his real name, mind you," Juvia laughs. "He took it up because he loved Metallica and thought his real name was rather lame. It took Juvia forever to convince Gajeel not to change his name and take up a silly rock star one."

"You talk about this Gajeel guy a lot," Gray observes. His face closes up with an expression she can't really interpret.

"He's like a brother to Juvia," she simply says.

"So…what about you?" she asks after a moment of silence. "Did you live in Tokyo your whole life?"

"Pretty much. I lived in Sapporo a while back. Way up north. But that was before my parents died," he says.

Juvia blinks back at him, suddenly unsure of what to say. This is the first time she's ever been at the receiving end of a "My parents are dead" talk. Suddenly, she feels bad for sniping at him yesterday for not understanding.

"It's okay. You don't have to say it," Gray says, catching the expression on her face. "I never liked it when people say sorry."

"It never feels genuine," Juvia automatically says. Gray nods his head in agreement.

"But Juvia is sorry about your parents," she quickly adds.

"Thanks. But it's okay," he says, giving a little shrug. Juvia narrows her eyes against him, trying to gauge his expression, trying to see if he's lying. "I was too young to remember them anyway. Ur was the one who brought me up. After she adopted me, I lived in Tokyo ever since."

"You're adopted?" Juvia says, eyes wide.

"Yeah. Ur took me in with Lyon. Raised us alongside her daughter Ultear." A nostalgic look crosses his face. "Those two were big pains in the asses but now that they're gone, I kind of miss them."

"They don't visit?" Juvia says, a little distractedly. There's just something about the name "Ur" that seems vaguely familiar. She feels as if she's heard it before. Or read it in one of the contracts she had to edit.

"They do. They've just been busy lately," Gray says. "Our company has been undergoing a lot of changes in the past year so their hands are a little full."

"You own a company?" she asks with interest. Obviously, she knew that he was a businessman of some sort but she had just assumed that he was a top executive or something instead of an actual shareholder.

"Yeah, an architecture firm. You might have heard of it. Although it's a bit hard to pronounce because Ur used her family name and she was part-Russian. Milkovich," Gray says.

Juvia nearly jumps in surprise, accidentally spilling her drink all over Gray's shirt. Milkovich. Of course. Ur Milkovich. Who didn't know her? She was one of the most revolutionary architects in Japan. She once designed an entire block of buildings in the shape of a thumbprint in downtown Tokyo. But what made her even more famous, to Juvia at least, was the fact that she died last year. It wasn't reported as much as celebrity deaths of course, but everyone in the business circuit knew about it.

"Oh god," Juvia stammers, trying—not very well—to conceal her shock. "Juvia…Juvia is so sorry…"

She's not even sure if she's apologizing for spilling her drink or for the fact that his mother is dead.

"It's okay," Gray says, giving her an amused look. He seems to have decided to take it as her saying sorry for spilling her drink.

He starts rambling about getting a shirt from the souvenir stands but she's not even listening. Her head is buzzing with confusion. He said it was a friend of his. She knows he did. She can hear him now: _You know my friend lost his mother when we were at college…I spent lots of nights talking with him. Lots of nights. You don't just get over it. And it doesn't make any difference that you've supposedly grown up. Or that it happened when you were a grown-up. It never goes away."_

As she digests this new bit of information, she suddenly feels chastened. He _did_ understand. She shouldn't have snapped at him. She wants to take back every snippy thing she's said to him yesterday and apologize. Is that why his siblings sent him on a retreat?

"Juvia?" Gray is waving a hand in front of her face. "You all right?"

"Er…yes." She tries to smile, confused at why he doesn't seem to be reacting to her discovering this newfound revelation. And suddenly, it hits her. Of course, he would still think she doesn't know about Ur. The news wasn't widely reported and was only spread around the business circuit. He still doesn't know she's a lawyer and would have assumed that like most of the general populace, she didn't know about it.

"We've arrived in Bentenjima," he says.

"Oh. Yay," she weakly says, trying desperately to keep up an oblivious façade. As the two of them walk towards one of the souvenir stands to buy Gray a new shirt, she tries to fight off her desperate urge to give him a hug.

"Hello? Juvia?" Gray says, pulling her out of her thoughts again.

"Yes?"

"What do you think?" Gray asks, holding two shirts up. "This one? Or this one?"

"Um…that one!" she says, automatically picking the one with a floofy rabbit hopping about the lighthouse.

Gray snorts, pulling his wallet out and paying for the shirt. "Figures you'd pick the cutest one."

"Cute?" Juvia says in mock indignation. "For your information, that shirt is highly sophisticated."

"Uh-huh," he says, completely deadpan. The vendor hands him his shirt and he pockets the rest of his change.

Juvia opens her mouth to say something else but she abruptly stops when Gray pops open the top button of his white polo.

"Er…what are you doing?"

"Changing out of the shirt you ruined."

"But…but we're in public!" Juvia sputters.

Gray shrugs. "I'm just changing my shirt. It's not as if I'm stripping down naked. It's not a problem is it?"

"Um…no…" Her voice is grainy for some reason. "No...not at all..."

Gray starts to unbutton his shirt and when she catches a flash of his smooth skin, she hastily lowers her gaze.

What is wrong with her? Why is she being so adolescent? So he's taking off his shirt. It's no big deal.

She's being ridiculous.

She's a grown, mature woman. It's not her first time seeing a man naked. She can look at Gray shirtless without falling to bits. What she'll do is…she'll take casual peek. Just to get it out of her mind.

She lifts her juice cup to her mouth and as she takes a sip, she accidentally-on-purpose raises her eyes.

Oh god.

His body is like carved marble.

She's not sure this whole getting-it-out-of-her-mind thing is going to work out at all.

"Fuck!" Gray screeches as she accidentally spills juice all over his bare chest again.

"Juvia is so, so sorry!" she says, feeling mortally embarrassed. What is wrong with her? She can't believe she's acting like a schoolgirl over a man shirtless. She honestly thought she was deeper than that.

"It's okay," Gray says as Juvia fumbles around for a tissue. "I was just caught off guard."

 _So was I_ , Juvia miserably thinks.

"Here!" she manages in a strangled squawk. The moment the tissues are in his hands, she looks away again, her heart thumping.

Why did she have to spill her drink on his shirt?

 _Why_?

As he pulls his new shirt on, Juvia resolutely keeps her eyes fixed on the ground, determined to not let the whole thing affect her. Never mind that she's just realized how insanely attractive he is.

Oh god, no.

She can't think he's attractive. He's her boss! And she's the help. And the last thing she needs right now is to be crushing on him.

"Are you alright Juvia?" Gray says in concern. "You look a little flushed."

"It's um…the heat," she hastily says.

"You are pretty pale. Should we get some sunblock?"

"No, it's okay."

"Are you sure?"

She thickly swallows and forces herself to meet his gaze. "Yes, of course. Everything's absolutely fine."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** First of all, I would like to apologize for two things. First, I'm very sorry for updating late last week. For some reason, I had assumed that the chapter was already up but it turns out I merely uploaded the file on the doc manager and accidentally thought I had the fifth chapter up. Second, I'm sorry for not responding to your reviews yet. I owe a lot of you some messages (especially Kate! I have so much to tell you hahaha).

With that being said, thank you very much for waiting. Thanks also to Snavej for helping me with the exchange rates. I'll definitely change them soon.

Thank you again!


	6. Chapter 6

**Six**

* * *

"Juvia!"

Juvia flinches, darting to the next room and trying desperately to pretend as if she hasn't heard Gray. Ever since she saw him half-naked, she's been trying her absolute hardest to avoid him. She flaked out on their plans to go to Mutsu by pretending she suddenly had a bad fever and after preparing Gray and Erza breakfast and leaving the trays on the table, she spent the whole morning of Monday holed up in her room.

She knows she's being incredibly childish but every time she sees Gray, she automatically reverts to the behavior of a fourteen-year-old. Next thing she knows, she'll be doodling Juvia loves Gray with a heart dotting the "i." _Which absolutely cannot happen._ No matter what those stupid paperbacks may say, she knows just as well as anyone that a relationship with someone as important as Gray would never work out. She can only think of the scandal she would have caused if she had hooked up with a plumber back when she was a lawyer. Sure, he knows she's not a real housekeeper but still. She can't shake off the feeling that even admitting being attracted to him is highly inappropriate and unprofessional.

And she's never been unprofessional a day in her life. Not even during that time when she had to deal with a rude client who kept making snide comments about her teeth.

Obviously, she doesn't plan on avoiding him forever. They live in the same house and she works for him so she's bound to interact with him eventually. She just…needs time to calm herself. Yes, that's it. She just needs some time away from him so she can a grip on herself and become the mature, levelheaded professional she had been before seeing him shirtless.

"Where were you? I've been looking for you everywhere," Gray asks her before she can safely make it out of the backdoor.

"Oh…er…Juvia was just…" She flounders helplessly, for once unable to think of an explanation. Gray just seems to have this strange ability to render her mute. As she struggles to think of a response, she tries to discreetly check her body language. She's read in article before that if a woman is attracted to a man, her pupils will dilate. Also, she will unconsciously lean forward, laugh at his jokes and expose her wrists and palms.

The good news is, that hasn't happened to her yet.

"Being one with nature?" he asks, the corners of his mouth twitching ever so slightly.

"No!" she hotly responds, finally getting her voice back. Then, in a calmer tone, she continues, "Juvia was planning to go visit Belno since Erza-san is going to be gone for the whole day. You know…to learn how to cook and clean."

"Oh. Okay. Just give me a few more seconds to put my shoes on," he says, making a move to turn around.

"Um…what?"

"We're going to Belno's right?"

 _We?_

"Actually," Juvia says, forcing herself to speak before he can leave. "Juvia was…planning to go to Belno's _alone_."

Gray pauses. "Oh."

"She wouldn't want to bother you," she hastily adds when she notices an expression on his face that seems to resemble…hurt?

"You're not bothering me," he says just as quickly.

"Oh no, you don't have to be polite—''

"No, seriously. You're not bothering me. I don't mind going with you to Belno's," he says, making a move once again to leave. "So, if you can just wait for a moment—''

" _No_!" Juvia blurts out, much louder than she was supposed to. "You can't go."

He gives her an incredulous look. "Why not?"

"Because…Juvia plans on discussing…girl things with Belno," she haltingly says.

"Girl things," he repeats.

She nods her head and tries to ignore how incredibly handsome he looks with his hair all rumpled like that. She wonders how many minutes he spends in front of the mirror to make sure his hair artfully disheveled. Vaguely, she can feel the beginnings of a blush work its way from the base of her neck to her cheeks.

"Yes," she squeaks out, trying to avoid his eyes. "Girl things."

"Okay," he says, giving her one of his weirded out, confused looks. He seems to give a lot of those whenever he's around her. "I'll leave you to it then."

She sags in relief, happy that she at least has the whole day off away from him. That should be plenty of time for her to get over this silly attraction. And then, things between them can get back to normal.

"Thank you," she says, bobbing a curtsy. Gray gives a small, amused look but doesn't comment on it. She doesn't really need to curtsy to him since he knows she's not a real housekeeper but it's become so automatic to her that she does it without meaning to.

"Oh—wait. Did you want something?" she says.

"What?"

"You said you were looking everywhere for me. Did you want something?"

"I just wanted to check up on you. See if you're fever is gone," he says, giving her a worried look. He holds out a small packet of tablets. "I was going to remind you to take two more this morning but…you seem okay now."

"Ah yes. It was a…slight thing. Probably just a small heatstroke," she says. Still, she can't help feeling touched that he went to that effort.

He gives her a wry look. "I wished you told me that before I scolded Erza for making you work today."

"Oh, you shouldn't have," Juvia says, feeling guilty. Erza dropped by her room and told her to take it easy today but she insisted on doing something. There's only so much of not-doing-anything that she can take.

"It's okay. Just wanted to make sure you got enough rest." He shoves the tablets back into his pockets before looking up and jerking his head towards the backdoor. "Shall I walk you out to the road?"

Oh, god. He's being chivalrous.

Her heart immediately starts pounding against her rib cage as the heat in her cheeks intensifies. She feels as though any minute now, she's going to melt into a puddle of water.

No, stop.

It's what any self-respecting gentleman would offer to do.

It's no big deal.

Unable to think of any other excuse, Juvia says in what was supposed to be a perfectly calm and controlled voice, "Yes. Sure."

 _What the hell was that?_

Why did she just sound like a chipmunk?

She was so absorbed in silently berating herself that she doesn't realize that she's already out into the main road until Gray bids her goodbye. As she watches his retreating figure, she suddenly has the intense urge to call out to him and ask him to come back. But no. That would be defeating the entire purpose of her going to Belno's alone. If he's with her she's just going to never stop noticing how handsome he looks.

Briskly, she trudges over to Belno's house, trying to get rid of her newfound fixation on Gray. This is insane. It's making her feel all jumpy and weird. Like…she's not in entirely in control of herself. And that's really the last thing she needs right now.

What she'll do is…micromanage. And compartmentalize. Yes! She already knows she's physically attracted to him so all she has to do is shove that attraction somewhere deep and dark in her mind and get on with maintaining her professional attitude.

Feeling considerably better, she rounds the corner to Belno's house and smooths her skirt before knocking on the door.

"Juvia!" Belno cheerily says. She's wearing a flower-patterned maxi dress dusted with flour and half-moon spectacles.

"Juvia hopes she's not bothering you. She didn't really tell you ahead of time."

"No, of course not! Come in! Come in," Belno says, leading her into a bright, sunny kitchen filled with flowers in earthenware jugs and old-fashioned wooden tables.

"This place hasn't changed a bit!" Juvia says in amazement.

"Haven't had the time to redecorate," Belno chuckles in response. She starts rooting through the cabinets before pulling out a strange looking metal contraption and a childish drawing of a house and a woman in glasses. "Look what I've got…"

"Oh my god! You even kept some of the stuff Gajeel and I made for you," Juvia says as she takes the drawing from Belno's hands.

"How could I not? You two came here nearly every day," Belno nostalgically says. She picks up a round lump of dough on the table, opens the heavy oven door and pops it in. Then, she washes her floury hands in the sink and turns to face Juvia.

"So. You want to learn how to cook," Belno says. Her tone is friendly but businesslike. Belno has never been the kind of woman who wastes her words.

"Yes," Juvia says, grateful that she hasn't started asking prying questions about how Juvia ended up being a maid.

"That shouldn't be too hard, now should it? Before the accident, you've been cooking for most of your life," Belno kindly says.

"Well…er…the thing is…Juvia may need to re-learn…some things," she mumbles. "Juvia hasn't cooked in…oh…about…maybe seventeen or so years?"

Belno blinks at her disbelief. "Oh come on. You must be able to do the basics, at the very least. Go on. Tell me what you can make."

"Toast," Juvia automatically responds. "Maybe some…sandwiches? And crumpets. Anything that Juvia can heat up in the microwave or oven toaster really."

Belno looks absolutely taken aback. "How about your mother's old recipes? Surely, you could at least cook those—''

"No, not even those," Juvia shortly says. "It's just been…a very weird couple of years."

"I see." Belno exhales sharply, as though taking in the situation for the first time. "And what exactly did you promise to cook Erza and Gray?"

Sheepishly, Juvia gets the crumpled papers full of recipes she jotted down from the cookbooks and hands them to Belno.

"Braised lamb and baby onion assemble with a fondant potato and goat's cheese crust, accompanied by cardamom spinach puree," Belno says in tones of disbelief.

Okay.

Maybe she should have copied the easier ones.

Like the one about baby back ribs.

But then again, her motto has always been go big or go home.

"Well, lucky for you assemble just mean flannel." Belno is still perusing the papers. "That's just souped-up shepherd's pie. We can teach you that. And the braised trout with almonds is straight forward enough…"

She runs her finger further down the page, then at last looks up frowning. "But perhaps we should start with Japanese dishes. Something simpler."

She reaches out to put a gentle hand over Juvia's. "I was thinking we start with some of your mother's old recipes? Maybe that would be easier because you've done them before."

"Of course," Juvia firmly says. "Whatever will get the job done faster."

"Good."

Belno starts bustling about the kitchen, reaching into the cupboard for a set of weighing scales and Juvia takes the opportunity to grab a pen and paper.

"What's that for?" Belno suddenly demands.

"So Juvia can take notes," she replies, writing down the date and then, "Cooking Lesson No. 1" right after it.

Belno purses her lips in indignation.

"Honestly! I thought your mother trained you better than this. Cooking isn't about writing things down. It's about _feeling_. Touching. Smelling."

"Right." Juvia nods her head as she scribbles down "Cooking is about feeling, touching, smelling" and underlining the words twice.

"Juvia!" Belno says, annoyed. She grabs Juvia's pen and paper and flings them away. Juvia gapes at her in shock.

" _Tasting_ ," Belno repeats, once again. "You need to use your _senses_ , not write things down."

"Er…right," Juvia says, suddenly uncomfortable at the prospect of learning something without notes. Who even does that?

"Here. Taste this," Belno orders. She lifts the lid of a pot and dips a spoon into it before holding it out to Juvia.

Gingerly, Juvia places the spoon to her mouth. "It's miso soup."

"Don't tell me what you think it is. Tell me what you can taste."

Oh god. Is this a trick question?

"Juvia can taste…miso."

Belno's frown deepens and she gives Juvia an expectant stare. Obviously, she's waiting for something else.

"Er…white miso? Dark miso?" she hazards.

Immediately, she knows it's the wrong answer.

Of course there would be white and dark miso in the soup! It's _miso_ soup, for god's sake.

"Try again," Belno commands.

Her mind flounders as she tries to remember what were the regular ingredients cooks put inside miso.

"Dashi? Mirin? Tofu?" Her eyes widen in sudden inspiration. "Ooh…Juvia knows! Nori!"

Surreptitiously, she hazards a glance at Belno and gulps. If looks could kill, Juvia would have been dead a hundred times by now.

Juvia swallows, her face growing hot as she struggles for words. She feels like that dumb kid in class who can't do the two-times table.

"Try again. Don't think about identifying the ingredients. Just tell me what the sensation is." She dips the spoon into the pot and holds it out to Juvia again. "Taste it again and this time, close your eyes."

"Okay," Juvia reluctantly says, closing her eyes and trying her very best to concentrate only on the flavors.

"So Juvia. What do you taste?"

Eyes shut tight, she tries to block out everything and focus all her attention on her mouth. All she's aware of is the warm, salty taste of the soup. Salt. There's this one flavor though that's a little out of place…not in a bad way…just in the sense that miso soups weren't supposed to have this flavor in them.

It's almost like colors appearing. First, the obvious, bright ones, and then, the subtler ones, the ones you don't at first…

"It's salty…and a little sweet…" Her eyes flutter open. "Is it honey?"

Belno nods in approval. Juvia sighs, her shoulders sagging with relief.

Thank god, she's finally gotten it right. Belno smiles at her and they move on to their first dish.

They spend the rest of the morning cooking.

Belno teaches her how to slice an onion finely, turn it the other way and produce tiny dices. She struggles at first (nearly cutting her thumb off) but she manages to crack it after her second try. Then, she learns how to chop herbs with a rounded blade and how to rub flour and ground ginger into meat. She learns how to knead dough and blanch French beans before boiling them in water and sautéing them in oil.

By the time she gets to her fourth lesson, it's almost like a reflex. _Almost_. She still screws up a few times but they're mostly minor mistakes. She manages to bake some brownies without burning her hands and stuff a chicken without too much calamity. As she goes through dish after dish, the strangest feeling starts overcoming her. It feels a little like how it used to back when she and her mother cooked in their kitchen. It starts as a tingle in her fingers and toes, much like the feeling she gets when she's anxious, but instead of worrisome, it's warm. She feels it pass through her like a calm, ocean wave, washing her with this strange sense of peace. She can't know for sure today will be better than yesterday but she feels as though the old monochrome convention of herself is slowly fading away into a brightly-colored paper doll.

After going through three dishes, Juvia and Belno decide that Juvia will bring home the roast chicken with onion and sage stuffing, steamed broccoli, cumin-scented carrots and roast potatoes for Gray and Erza's dinner. Not that her sushis and kushikatsus weren't delicious but Erza did seem to have a penchant for Western dishes. As she heaves the roasting tin out of the oven, she pauses for a moment and lets the warm, chicken-scented air rise over her. She has never smelled a more homey scent in her life. The chicken is golden, with its crisp, crackly skin, speckled with pepper, the juices still sizzling on the tin.

As Belno wraps it up into some tin foil, Juvia clears her throat and says, "Belno-san…thank you so much. Not just for teaching Juvia but for…"

She trails off, unsure of what to say next. For reminding her how happy cooking used to make her? For making her realize that she was wrong to have shut herself away from it for so long?

"Oh no, don't worry about it. I enjoyed it thoroughly," Belno says. "You know how I love bossing people about…"

"But really. Juvia is so grateful. She doesn't what she would have done without your help. Is there any way she can repay you?"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Belno carefully pours some gravy into a plastic container and grins at her. "Next time you manage to escape from Gray and Erza, we will tackle laundering and vacuuming."

A small, amused smile tugs on her lips. "I didn't believe Gray when he told me about the carpet incident but after seeing you nearly slice your thumb off, I'm starting to think he's telling the truth."

Juvia gives her an embarrassed look. "Thanks."

The two of them wrap the rest of the vegetables up and after they finish, Belno walks Juvia to the door. Before she leaves, Belno gently takes Juvia's hands into her own and says, "Juvia, I have no idea what's happened but you were always an exceptional child. Right now you might be in a situation that you think you won't survive but I'm willing to bet that months ago you were in a situation you didn't think would survive. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is…you'll always surprise yourself and you'll always pull through."

"Thank you so much, Belno," Juvia says, giving one of the few genuine smiles she's made since she's gotten to Oma.

* * *

When Juvia unwraps the tinfoil and carefully unloads the chicken on to another try, Gray raises a brow and gives her a vaguely impressed look. Her efforts to avoid him had been rendered useless when she entered the kitchen and found him calmly drinking coffee and reading a book about ancient architectural marvels.

"You're not telling me you made that?" Gray asks.

Har-dee-har-har.

"Just something Juvia rustled up earlier," she nonchalantly says.

"Cordon Bleu style?" he says, getting up to help her set the chicken while she dishes out the vegetables.

To her horror, she responds with a playful wink. She pauses, heart pounding and after a few moments of indecision, carefully steals a look at him. He continues on with his task of carving up the chicken, seemingly unaware that she just winked at him.

Okay.

That's good.

She wouldn't want him to get the wrong idea.

What she'll do is…she'll come up with a witty retort. Something that will result in easy banter between the two of them.

"…Yes."

Oh, great.

 _Real clever._

"Anyway, there's a bit of time left before dinner. I was wondering if you'd like to go help me water the plants. I could use some extra help," Gray tells her.

Watering plants.

That seems innocuous enough. And the garden is big enough for her to wander into some portion where she can't see him. It at least seems simpler than vacuuming and any of the other house chores she attempted to do.

"Er…sure," Juvia says.

Before the two of them can leave, Erza suddenly comes tripping into the room wearing sweats and a loose-fitting black shirt.

"Juvia! There you are!" She sounds extremely pleased with herself. Automatically, Juvia stiffens. She does not have a good feeling about this.

"Erza-san—''

"I cannot have you walking around like that anymore!" Erza declares, shaking her head vigorously.

"Come again?" Juvia says, peering at her.

"Your hair," she replies, making a face.

"Oh, right." Juvia touches the bleached streak with a grimace."Juvia meant to have it done by the weekend."

"You're getting it done _now_ ," Erza cuts across her.

"What?"

"Gray told me you had a bad fever and I feel absolutely _terrible_ for making you work," Erza guiltily says.

"No, Erza-san it's fine, it was Juvia who insisted—''

"So, to make it up to you, I decided to give us a girl's night out!"

"A what?" Gray frowns.

"I already booked an appointment with Cancer, my hairdresser and a whole spa treatment at Maenohara. Then, we'll have a lovely dinner in a nice restaurant somewhere," Erza excitedly says, grabbing Juvia by the arm and swiftly bustling her out into the backdoor.

"Now? But…me and Juvia were already set to water the plants," Gray protests.

"Gray!" Erza says, shooting him a scandalized look. "You know Juvia is sick! You shouldn't be making her work. She deserves a break."

Then, in an imperious tone, she adds, "And besides, I'm sure you're more than capable of watering those plants by yourself."

"But what about dinner?" Gray splutters, looking ruffled for once. "Juvia made roast chicken and—''

"We can wrap that up and eat it tomorrow," Erza impatiently interrupts, waving her hand dismissively. "And besides, I'm sure she wouldn't object to eating somewhere fancy for the night."

Erza rounds on Juvia and raises her brows in expectation. Juvia swallows. Actually, she'd much rather stay at home and sleep early but there's just something about Erza's penetrating stare that's making it difficult for Juvia to say no.

She has no choice. She has to follow Erza. And to think this was her first time coming up with something edible.

"Um…yes. That would be nice, Erza-san," she squeaks out.

Juvia sends Gray a distressed look but Erza is already pulling her out of the room.

* * *

After going to the salon to fix the streak in her hair and having a relaxing afternoon in the sauna, the two of them make their way to the other end of the spa for their massage.

"Your skin is very dehydrated," the masseuse says. She runs an expert hand across Juvia's cheek and rests her fingers against her jaw, looking concerned. "Your heart rates are very high. That's not healthy. Are you feeling particularly tense?"

"She got sick the day before," Erza answers before Juvia can. She shoots Juvia a guilty look. "And I made her work."

"Erza-san, it's totally fine. Juvia was the one who insisted," Juvia soothingly says. In all honesty, she probably came up with those results because she's a naturally tense person. Not a day goes by without her feeling as though someone is piling heavy weights on her. Of course, it was worse when she was a lawyer but that's not to say her new job doesn't have its own stresses.

"Well." The masseuse gets up, presses a button on the wall and gentle pan-pipe music starts fills the air. "You've come to the right place. Our aim here is to de-stress, detoxify and revitalize. Now if you two can please get under the towels so we can start."

The masseuse leaves for a moment to get her oils while Juvia and Erza arrange themselves on the massage table.

"I'm terribly sorry for making you work," Erza says once again.

"Erza-san, it's fine. In fact, Juvia is very grateful that you brought her to this spa. You are very kind," Juvia says. And as she says the words, she realizes how true they are. Erza may be absolutely incapable of reading social cues (Turkish style incidents, anyone?) but her kindness is real.

"You can take another day-off if you like," Erza offers as the masseuse comes back with another one in tow.

"Oh, no it's okay! Juvia had plenty of rest last weekend," Juvia says. _Too much_ rest if you ask her. After lying to Gray, she had nothing to do in her room but take naps and watch cat videos on her phone.

"Did you go to town? Or just stay at home?"

"She went with Gray-sama to the lighthouse. Then, we went to Hakodate," Juvia says without thinking.

Immediately, she realizes her mistake. It's not every day housekeepers go out to lighthouses and out of town trips with their bosses.

"Gray?" Erza sounds astonished. "Why?"

Juvia squirms a little under her towel as she struggles to fabricate a convincing reason.

"Just to…look around really," Juvia says at last, aware that she's tongue-tied and that her cheeks are turning pink.

Erza's face suddenly snaps in comprehension and her eyes open very wide. She lifts her head up, only to be scolded by the masseuse who barks at her to relax.

"Oh, I see!" she says.

"No!" Juvia quickly says. "It's not! Honestly!"

"That's why he seemed so cheerful yesterday," Erza rambles, completely ignoring Juvia. " _How adorable_!"

"Erza-san, it's really nothing—''

"Juvia, Juvia, Juvia," Erza says, sounding slightly defensive. "There's no need to worry, you know. I'm a perfectly _liberal_ and _open-minded_ person."

"Juvia is sure you are but she's telling you—''

"And if you're worried about Gray being involved with someone else, I'll have you know that he's perfectly single."

Well.

That's certainly news.

Not that, that's relevant to her at all.

Who cares if he's single or not?

It's not as if she's planning on her pursuing him or anything.

"But—''

"Don't worry," Erza cuts her off emphatically. She puts a fingers to her lips. "I won't say a word. I am discretion itself."

Before she can say anything else, the masseuse asks Erza about which area she would like worked on, forcing Erza to look away from her.

Oh god.

That was awkward.

But she supposes it doesn't matter. As long as Erza doesn't say anything inappropriate to Gray.

Oh, who is she kidding.

Of course Erza will say something inappropriate to Gray. She'll make some oh-so-subtle innuendo and then who knows what Gray will think. This could be really embarrassing. This could ruin everything. The moment she gets home, she's going to have to make the situation clear to him. Make him understand that Erza misunderstood her and that she most definitely does not have a crush on him.

But that won't help if Erza has already got it in her head that Juvia's attracted to Gray. Of course, between the two of them, he'll believe his friend. And it's not as if she can just go up to him and tell him "Juvia most certainly does _not_ have a crush on you." That would be weird.

What she needs to do is to make it clear to Erza that she doesn't like Gray in that way. Or…or make her forget about the whole incident by…coming up with another, more distracting topic.

"So...for how long did you know Gray-sama?"

Aargh.

What the hell is wrong with her?

She was supposed to be distracting Erza from the whole Gray thing with a topic that is not about Gray!

Erza gives her a triumphant look, almost as if she's discovered something particularly damming about the Juvia.

"Since we were in college," Erza says. "Tokyo University. We were partners for a literature report. We didn't always get along, mind you. But then again, he didn't get along right away with the rest of our friends at first. The fights he got into Natsu."

She clucks her tongue in disapproval. "He can be quite abrasive."

Juvia tries to hide her surprise from Erza and makes a vague gesture with her hands. She and Gajeel went to Tokyo University for college and for law. How had she never seen Gray and Erza before? But then again, the campus is rather large and it's possible for people from different courses and years to have never met each other.

"What was Gray-sama like in college?" Juvia curiously says, deciding to abandon her quest of proving to Erza that she doesn't like him. She knows any attempt to do so will be futile so she might as well satisfy her curiosity while she's at it.

"Highflier," Erza says. "You know the type. Had good grades. Played for the baseball team. Was part of the student council. He was very serious and determined. That's why we got on so well. After we graduated, it was really no surprise that he ended up being successful. Even without Ur giving him the position, we knew that he would have done well regardless."

The two fall into comfortable silence as Juvia tries to digest this newfound information. For some reason, it feels strange to know more about Gray's life. He has friends. He has a life. He has a relationship with his family. He has a whole load of stuff Juvia doesn't know about. As she feels the masseuse's hands on her shoulder, a strange wistfulness washes over her. Eventually, she's going to sort herself out and leave and then, she'll never see him again. She'll never know all of the other chapters of Gray's life. He'll never tell her and she'll never ask. They'll part ways and she'll just have the impression she's already got. The Mr. Frowny version of himself that does gardening as hobby and catches unsuspecting fake housekeepers in embarrassing moments.

She wonders what impression he'll have of her.

Oh god.

Better not go there.

"You're incredibly nervy," her masseuse conversationally suddenly says. "Your shoulders are so rigid, your heart is racing…it seems to me you're on the edge."

Erza suddenly turns to Juvia again. "Me and Gray haven't been overworking you now, have we?"

"No, not all!" Juvia says for the millionth time. "Juvia's…just naturally this way?"

Her masseuse clucks her tongue in disapproval. "Workaholics. Just don't how to relax."

Juvia frowns and is about to retort something in her defense but Erza speaks before she can.

"This is all my fault. I've been too distracted to realize that I've worked you to the ground," Erza moans.

"Oh no...you didn't—''

"And I'm never there in the house. I'm truly sorry if I haven't been paying so much attention to you, Juvia. I know I should've been there to help you acclimate and answer some questions you might have," Erza continues.

"It's no problem, Erza-san," Juvia says. In reality, she's actually very happy that Erza's been too busy to deal with her for the past few days. She doesn't even want to think about what would have happened if Erza wasn't. She'd probably be already fired.

"I have to admit, I've been very distracted these past few days. I've just been so _frazzled_ ," Erza loudly exhales. "It's been a very stressful year, you know? The company's undergoing through so much changes and it's been doubly difficult without Gray there."

"Why is Gray-sama not currently holding his position?"

A suspicious look crosses Erza's features. She narrows her eyes against Juvia, her gaze scrutinizing. "Didn't you read about this in the brief?'

Juvia turns to look at the wall, thoroughly panicked. _Shit_. How could she have forgotten about the brief? Carefully, she sneaks a glance at Erza who is still looking at her in slight suspicion.

"Er…Juvia…may have just skimmed over it," she mumbles.

The look doesn't leave Erza's face but she relaxes a little. "Oh. Well. After Ur died, he went a bit off the rails. Which was perfectly understandable. It was just too many things happening at once. You know about his mother, right?"

Juvia nods her head.

"Meningitis, I think it was. She has not been well for several years but nobody expected her to peg it so soon. I think what made the whole thing more difficult was the fact that Ur fell into a coma and it came to the point where she was brain dead so he and his siblings were forced to decide if they were going to pull her off life support or not. It took a while but eventually Lyon and Ultear decided to do it. Poor Gray. He never really wanted to do it but he was outnumbered. I suspect he still resents them a little."

By the time Erza finishes, Juvia realizes that her eyes are a little hot. She can't imagine what Gray must have felt. The wait must have been horrible. She could just picture him in a tiny hospital room, sitting by his mother's bedside, waiting day after day for any sign of brain activity. For a slight movement of the hand, a small flutter of the eyes, an irregularity in the breathing, _something_. And to actually come to the decision to pull the plug…

"And on top of that, the three of them have to deal with somebody attempting to ruin the company," Erza continues, sounding indignant.

"What?" Juvia says, forcing herself to focus.

"It was one of the directors. Hades. With all the flurry of Ur being under, the three of them weren't keeping as close of an eye on the firm as they should. Hades began poaching clients for the new firm he was planning to set up. Also tampered a bit with the finances. By the time they realized what was happening, the company was on the brink of collapse. _It was a complete disaster_."

"No wonder why Gray-sama got sent here. If Juvia went through what he did…" She shudders. "She'd want a retreat too."

Erza nods her head. "Oh yes. It was a very bad year. It was so stressful for everyone."

Juvia peers at Erza in curiosity. "But…what Juvia doesn't get is, why didn't Gray-sama's siblings go on a retreat too? It sounds as if they needed it."

Erza winces. "Gray's retreat…was more a _forced_ thing, really. His siblings insisted on it after he punched a potential client. Lost us a multi-million dollar deal."

"Oh god!" Juvia gasps.

"It's not his fault! The client was insulting Ur's designs and being completely disrespectful," Erza defensively says.

"Oh. That's understandable," Juvia says. There's absolutely nothing _worst_ in the corporate world than messing up relations with clients and losing money for the company. That's practically as bad as what she did with Feari Teiru.

Except of course, unlike Gray, she had absolutely no good reason for losing the money except for her own incompetence.

"But he seems to be better now," Juvia supplies.

"Yes, things are certainly looking up," Erza nods. She then shoots Juvia a teasing look. "I've even noticed that he seems happier than normal."

Juvia flushes and looks away, refusing to even dignify such a suggestion with an answer.

"It won't be long before Gray will be back on his feet," Erza continues. "Everything has been going smoothly. We're going to re-launch the brand. Katsuki Azuma—he's one of our directors—has been a godsend, taking initiative and securing new deals. He's the one charged with handling the re-launch you know."

Juvia pauses.

She's heard that name before.

She crews her eyes up tight and tries to concentrate as hard as she can. Katsuki Azuma. She can almost see it in her mind's eye, grasping at the image, trying her very best to come up with some sort of association…

Suddenly, it comes to her.

The swirly writing of a wedding invitation. It was circulated around the office about three years ago. She didn't go but that was only because she had to secure a deal with a company.

 _Mr. and Mrs. Porla request the pleasure of your company at the wedding of their daughter, Ayami Porla and Azuma Katsuki…_

Juvia frowns. So Jose is the father-in-law of an important director in Gray's company. That's hardly groundbreaking information.

But still…it feels important. Monumental, even. If she could just figure out why it's so relevant…

She's so fixated in her thoughts the she doesn't realize that Erza has been speaking to her for the last five minutes.

"Juvia!" Erza impatiently says.

"Yes?"

"I was just asking you if you could cook some paella for tomorrow," Erza says, frowning a little.

"Paella?"

"Yes. I was just speaking to Reddofokkusu-san and he told me about that marvelous paella you cooked the Spanish ambassador—''

"Wait. _Wait_. Reddofokkusu-san?" Juvia says, dread creeping up her spine.

"Yes," Erza says, confused at the expression on Juvia's face. "He was the reference you gave me. I called him up yesterday."

"Oh," Juvia says. She forces herself to give Erza a weak smile. "Wow. That's...so great."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** So, I just want to clarify something. I already mentioned this in the author's note of the first chapter but I just thought it would be worth emphasizing again. I did not come up with the premise for this story. I got it from Sophie Kinsella's book The Undomestic Goddess and for those who have read it, several situations are the same as the one in the book. If I have the time, I will make a comprehensive list of what these situations are. I just thought I'd bring this up again because it makes me feel uncomfortable whenever people give me compliments about how "original" this idea is.

Also, many thanks to 4kcu0 for the drawing. It's now the cover photo! You can follow her at 4kcu0 dot tumblr dot com.

Anyways, thanks for the reviews! I'm sorry I haven't responded to them yet. I'll try to catch up soon.


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